BERESFORD, John Davys

(1873-1947)

   UK writer. Son of a clergyman, he was crippled in infancy by polio; both facts were influential in forming his worldview. A determined but defensive agnosticism normally guides the development of his futuristic and metaphysical speculations, but occasionally he allowed a strong wish-fulfilment element into his work, as in The Camberwell Miracle (1933), in which a crippled girl is cured by a faith-healer; like Arthur Conan DOYLE he could adopt either an extremely hard-headed rationalism or a naive mysticism. JDB's first sf novel was the classic The Hampdenshire Wonder (1911; exp vt The Wonder 1917 US), a biographical account of a freak superchild born out of his time; the theme was recapitulated in Olaf STAPLEDON's Odd John (1935). His second, Goslings (1913; vt A World of Women 1913 US), is the first attempt to depict an all-female society which treats the issue seriously and with a degree of sympathy. Many of his early speculative short stories were collected in Nineteen Impressions (coll 1918) and Signs and Wonders (coll 1921). Some are allegories born of religious doubt, such as "A Negligible Experiment", in which the impending destruction of Earth is taken as evidence that God has become indifferent to mankind; others are visionary fantasies, such as "The Cage", in which a man is telepathically linked to a prehistoric ancestor for a few seconds; and yet others are studies in abnormal PSYCHOLOGY - an interest which also inspired the non-sf novel Peckover (1934). Revolution (1921) is a determinedly objective analysis of a socialist revolution in the UK.JDB began a second phase of speculative work in 1941. "What Dreams May Come . . ." (1941) is a powerful novel about a young man drawn into a utopian future he has experienced in his dreams, and then returned, altered in body and mind, to a hopeless messianic quest in the war-torn present. A Common Enemy (1942) is reminiscent of much of the work of H.G. WELLS, showing the destruction of society by natural DISASTER as a prelude to utopian reform. The Riddle of the Tower (1944), written with Esme Wynne-Tyson (1898-), is another wartime vision story following a future history in which utopian prospects are lost and society evolves towards "automatism", resulting in a hivelike social organization in which individuality - and ultimately humanity - are lost.There are notable similarities between the methods and outlook of JDB and Wells (JDB's H.G. Wells, 1915, was the first critical study of Wells's early work), but JDB never achieved the critical acclaim he deserved, either for his mainstream fiction or for his sf.

   BS

   Other works: All or Nothing (1928) and The Gift (1946, with Wynne-Tyson) are borderline fantasies about would-be MESSIAHS; Real People (1929) has a subplot involving ESP; there is 1 sf story, "The Man who Hated Flies", in The Meeting Place (coll 1929).

   See also: BIOLOGY; CHILDREN IN SF; DYSTOPIAS; ECOLOGY; END OF THE WORLD; ESP; EVOLUTION; HISTORY OF SF; HIVE-MINDS; INTELLIGENCE; POLITICS; RELIGION; SOCIOLOGY; SUPERMAN.