DOUGHTY, Charles M(ontagu)

(1843-1926)

   UK explorer and writer whose Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) profoundly influenced T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935), among others. The difficult, archaic language of CMD's later work, a series of book-length poems, has kept them from wide circulation. Two are of some sf interest: The Cliffs (1909) features an airborne "Persanian" invasion of England, which is successfully repelled; in The Clouds (1912) a similar invasion is successful, and England occupied. Both poems are designed as warnings to complacent Britons, and share many of the characteristics of the INVASION stories popular before WWI.

   JC