Adeler, Max
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Principal pseudonym of US author and businessman Charles Heber Clark (1841-1915), who wrote also as John Quill, under which name he published "The Women's Millennium" (26 April 1867 Philadelphia Daily Evening Bulletin), possibly the first sex-role-reversal Dystopia. Set in an indeterminate future, and told from the perspective of an even later period when some balance has been achieved, it is a remarkably cutting demonstration of the foolishness of male claims to natural superiority. Adeler's work as a whole was dominated by the conventions of American humour [for Tall Tales see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], and he often had recourse to the tiresome revelation that all was a dream. Some of the Inventions he describes jokingly, however, are of some sf interest: like the stepladder/folding couch with volition in Out of the Hurly-Burly; Or, Life in an Odd Corner (1874); or the perpetual motion machine in Captain Bluitt (coll of linked stories 1901; vt Captain Bluitt: A Tale of Old Turley 1901), which also includes a dubious Time Viewer in "Captain Bluitt Attempts to Peer into the Future" (2 November 1901 Saturday Evening Post); and the healing skills displayed by the doctor who narrates The Great Natural Healer (25 January 1902 Saturday Evening Post; 1910 chap).
Of greater sf interest is "Professor Baffin's Adventures" (in Beeton's Christmas Annual, anth 1880), a long Lost Race tale set on an Island severed from Britain in Arthurian times; its first appearance in the 1880 Beeton's volume [for Christmas Books see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] was as centrepiece to "The Fortunate Island" – a linked assemblage of stories and sketches by various authors which made up the bulk of the issue. As "Professor Baffin's Adventures" the tale was assembled in An Old Fogey and Other Stories (coll 1881; cut vt The Fortunate Island and Other Stories coll 1882); its appearance in the US edition vt "The Fortunate Island" may have been motivated by a sense that the latter title was more to the point. It is Adeler's story that almost certainly supplied Mark Twain with the basic premise and some of the actual plot of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). When accused of plagiarism, Twain responded evasively. [JC]
see also: Shared Worlds.
Charles Heber Clark
born Berlin, Maryland: 11 July 1841
died Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania: 10 August 1915
works
- Out of the Hurly-Burly; Or, Life in an Odd Corner (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: David McKay, 1874) [illus/hb/Arthur B Frost]
- Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J M Stoddart and Company, 1876) [coll of linked stories: illus/Arthur B Frost: hb/]
- Captain Bluitt (London: Ward, Lock, 1901) [coll of linked stories: illus/Will Owen: hb/]
- Captain Bluitt: A Tale of Old Turley (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Henry T Coates, 1901) [coll of linked stories: vt of the above: hb/]
- In Happy Hollow (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Henry T Coates, 1905) [hb/Herman Rountree]
- The Great Natural Healer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: George W Jacobs, 1910) as Charles Heber Clark [novella: chap: first appeared 25 January 1902 Saturday Evening Post: hb/uncredited]
collections and stories
- Random Shots (London: Ward, Lock, 1878) [coll: hb/Arthur B Frost]
- An Old Fogey and Other Stories (London: Ward, Lock, 1881) [coll: illus/hb/]
- The Fortunate Island and Other Stories (Boston, Massachusetts: Lee and Shepard, 1882) [coll: cut vt of above: illus/hb/Arthur B Frost]
- Transformations, Containing Mrs Shelmire's Djinn; And, A Desperate Adventure (London: Ward, Lock, circa 1883) [coll: illus/hb/Matt Stretch]
- A Desperate Adventure and Other Stories (London: Ward, Lock, circa 1883) [coll: unconfirmed evidence that other authors contributed: contents vary from Transformations above: contains "Merry Utopia; Or, the Drolleries of a Happy Island": hb/]
about the author
- Darko Suvin. Victorian Science Fiction in the UK: The Discourses of Knowledge and of Power (Boston, Massachusetts: G K Hall, 1983) [nonfiction: p28: hb/nonpictorial]
- David Ketterer. "'Professor Baffin's Adventures' by Max Adeler: the Inspiration for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?" (Spring 1986 Mark Twain Journal) [#24: mag/]
- David Ketterer. "'John Quill': The Women's Millennium", introduced by David Ketterer (March 1988 Science Fiction Studies) [vol 15, part 1: pp82-87: mag/]
- Horst H Kruse. "Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee: Reconsiderations and Revisions" (September 1990 American Literature) [vol 62, #3: mag/]
links
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