Richards' Shilling Selections from Edwardian Poets (1936).Milton's Lament for Damon and his other Latin poems (1935 with Walter W.The Strange Genius of David Lindsay (1970 with J.The Portent of Milton: Some Aspects of His Genius (1958).

Milton's Agonistes: a metaphysical criticism (1923).China Miéville has also expressed admiration for Visiak's work. An essay on the novel by Karl Edward Wagner appears in the anthology Horror: 100 Best Books (1988 revised edition 1992). Hadji in his list of 'unjustly neglected' horror novels. Medusa was also included by horror historian Robert S. Mike Ashley describes Medusa as Visiak's 'premier achievement'. His novel Medusa: A Story of Mystery (1929) became popular in the 1960s. Much of Visiak's supernatural work bears similarities to that of William Hope Hodgson since both writers were fascinated by the lure and power of the sea, which forms the focus of the majority of their literary work. The Shadow was not published separately but was incorporated in John Gawsworth's anthology Crimes, Creeps and Thrills (1936) (which also included Visiak's story 'Medusan Madness'). They there fall into the hands of pirates, meet a ghost, and a wizard who rules over a colony of slaves. The Haunted Island (1st edition Elkin Mathews, 1910 reprint Peter Lund, 1946) features the adventures of Francis and Dick Clayton in the seventeenth century, who sail a seized ship to one of the Juan Fernández Islands. He provided an introductory note for Lindsay's novel A Voyage to Arcturus. During the 1930s he collaborated on some short stories, with John Gawsworth in particular.Ī friend and enthusiast of the Scottish novelist David Lindsay, Visiak wrote three short macabre novels, The Haunted Island, Medusa and The Shadow, and the autobiography Life's Morning Hour. After a short time teaching he became an independent scholar, living very quietly. When conscription was introduced, he became a conscientious objector. He contributed poetry to The New Age and Dora Marsden's Freewoman.ĭuring World War I the poetry he wrote, in opposition to it, cost him his job. He went to Hitchin Grammar School (now Hitchin Boys School), and became a clerk with the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Both his father, Edward James Physick (the younger), and his grandfather, Edward James Physick (the elder), were sculptors. JSTOR ( August 2012) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Įdward Harold Physick (20 July 1878 – 30 August 1972) was an English writer, known chiefly as a critic and authority on John Milton also a poet and fantasy writer.Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.

Visiak medusa