Frank Aubrey

The Devil-tree of El Dorado (Wildside Fantasy) Frank Aubrey

THE DEVIL-TREE OF EL DORADO: A ROMANCE OF BRITISH GUIANA...

There is a long tradition among the romances of the 19th and early 20th century of the "lost race" novel concerning explorers (usually British or American) who stumble onto a culture exists hidden from the outside world. Among the most famous "lost race" novels are H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885), She (1886), and Allan Quatermain (1887). Jules Verne got into the act with Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), as did Arthur Conan Doyle (most famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes) with The Lost World (1912) and its sequel, The Poison Belt (1913). Edgar Rice Burroughs was among the most prolific lost race authors through his Tarzan series. There have been literally hundreds more, many of them famous.

The Devil-Tree of El Dorado (1897) concerns the discovery of the legendary city of Manoa in British Guiana, high atop Mt. Roraima, at that date an incredibly remote part of the world. British Guiana achieved independence in 1966 and became simply Guyana. In 1970 it became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America, and its neighbours are Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana).

With avid explorers and adventurers pushing to the remotest corners of the world, it was becoming harder to find isolated plateaus and secret valleys. South America and Africa held the last hopes for such romantic notions.

Another aspect of the lost race novel is its fantastic content. Many of the writers pioneering the genre liberally mixed in dashes of science, science fiction, and fantasy?in Aubrey's case, it takes the form of a scientific expedition to Mt. Roraima. Once beyond the reaches of civilization and hence the rational world, the fantasy and horror begin to creep into the narrative. The devil-tree of the title is nothing less than a carnivorous, man-eating tree on the summit of the mountain!