A Voyage to Arcturus

About this book

At a séance in London, a mysterious figure named Krag appears and invites a man called Maskull to travel with him to Tormance, a planet circling the double star Arcturus. Maskull wakes alone on Tormance, where he grows new sense organs that change how he sees and feels, and journeys across strange lands lit by two suns and coloured by two new primary colours, meeting beings who each embody a different philosophy of life and pleasure, as he searches for the truth behind Muspel, the source of all reality.

Context and significance

David Lindsay (1876–1945), a Scot who worked for years at Lloyd's in London before turning to writing, published the novel in 1920; it sold only a few hundred copies, but it later became a cult classic. C. S. Lewis called it a major influence on his own space trilogy, and critics count it among the strangest and most original novels of the century. Compare The Worm Ouroboros.

About the author