John Taine’s The Purple Sapphire

John Taine’s The Purple Sapphire is a 1924 lost world adventure tale.

John Taine was a pseudonym used by mathematician Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960) for his science fiction writing.

General Wedderburn, a rather pompous English officer, approaches American gem dealer and adventurer John Ford with a proposal. The general wants Ford and his niece (and partner) Rosita to find his daughter Evelyn. She disappeared thirteen years earlier, at the age of eight, and the general suspects his servant Singh of some involvement in the disappearance. Ford informs the general that he is not in the business of finding lost children.

Then General Wedderburn shows him something that changes his mind. It is the most extraordinary sapphire he has ever seen. If Ford can find Evelyn he will also find a lot more such sapphires. The general is convinced that Evelyn is somewhere in the unexplored wilds of Tibet, and that those sapphires are to be found in the same place.

The general has a vital clue - a half-dead man who also has such a sapphire in his possession. This wretched wreck of a man turns out to be another English officer by the name of Joicey, a man thought to have been dead for many years.

Joicey slowly recovers his strength and his sanity. He knows where the sapphires come from because he has been there. It is the land once inhabited by the Great Race, whose knowledge of science was so far in advance of our own that it beggars belief. Their descendants still live there although almost all of their ancient knowledge has been lost. It was a perilous journey to that land and an even more perilous journey back but it can be done. He has never seen Evelyn Wedderburn but he has reason to believe that she is safe and well. He also knows something about the mysterious Singh. Singh was a descendant of the Great Race.

Ford, Rosita and Joicey set off to repeat Joicey’s earlier journey. They do indeed find a lost world and the remnants of a lost civilisation and they slowly piece together the history of that civilisation and of the disaster that befell it.

The descendants of the Great Race have lost most of their ancient knowledge but they hope to regain it and the three adventurers are also rather attracted by the idea of unlocking the Great Race’s ancient secrets.

The motivations of the three adventurers are complex. They certainly hope to return with a bag full of sapphires but there’s also a sincere desire to rescue Evelyn Wedderburn. There’s also a lust for both knowledge and adventure. They are somewhat unscrupulous but also strangely decent. They rely on cleverness rather than violence. They don’t mind using deceit.

This is a lost world that is certainly no utopia. It’s a priest-ridden society in which there is no actual religion, just superstition. It’s a society obsessed with a past that it doesn’t even understand. People know how to follow rules but they don’t know how to think. They dream of regaining the immense powers over nature that their ancestors possessed but they have no idea how to go about it. All the information they need still exists but nobody can read the ancient texts. It’s also questionable whether they could be trusted with those immense powers. In fact it’s questionable whether their all-powerful ancestors had the wisdom to wield such powers.

It’s also a story about how civilisations can decline and ultimately destroy themselves.

There’s an almost complete lack of violence in this story but there’s plenty of danger and excitement.

An absorbing story, fairly complex characters and an interesting lost civilisation add up to a very fine novel which I highly recommend.

Armchair Fiction have issued this novel, in paperback, in their wonderful Lost World-Lost Race Classics series.

I’ve also reviewed another excellent lost world adventure by the same author, The Greatest Adventure.