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Fields of Sleep: Where dreams are eternal... and no one wakes.
A lost expedition. A hypnotic flower cult. A valley where no one dreams—because no one wakes.
When Victor Marshall answers a mysterious advertisement in London, he’s not expecting to be hired by an eccentric Frenchwoman obsessed with finding her missing son. The young man disappeared years ago in the East, chasing rumors of a hidden paradise known only as The Valley of Silent Men.
Armed with little more than a photograph and a generous advance, Marshall embarks on a journey that leads him through colonial outposts, whispered legends, and finally into the heart of an isolated jungle where an ancient race lives in peace under the influence of a strange, sleep-inducing flower. There is no war. No aging. No pain. Only endless, beautiful dreams—and the threat of death to anyone who resists.
But Marshall is not a man who surrenders easily.
Originally published in 1923, Fields of Sleep blends the pulp adventure of H. Rider Haggard with the strange, dreamlike atmosphere of Lord Dunsany and early Lovecraft. E. Charles Vivian explores the seductive pull of escapism and the psychological cost of paradise. Is this valley salvation—or a trap from which no one returns?
This edition, edited and introduced by Lucius Madison, features refined language, restored formatting, and a fresh foreword placing Vivian’s work in the context of early fantasy and weird fiction. Ideal for readers of classic speculative literature rediscovered.
When Victor Marshall answers a mysterious advertisement in London, he’s not expecting to be hired by an eccentric Frenchwoman obsessed with finding her missing son. The young man disappeared years ago in the East, chasing rumors of a hidden paradise known only as The Valley of Silent Men.
Armed with little more than a photograph and a generous advance, Marshall embarks on a journey that leads him through colonial outposts, whispered legends, and finally into the heart of an isolated jungle where an ancient race lives in peace under the influence of a strange, sleep-inducing flower. There is no war. No aging. No pain. Only endless, beautiful dreams—and the threat of death to anyone who resists.
But Marshall is not a man who surrenders easily.
Originally published in 1923, Fields of Sleep blends the pulp adventure of H. Rider Haggard with the strange, dreamlike atmosphere of Lord Dunsany and early Lovecraft. E. Charles Vivian explores the seductive pull of escapism and the psychological cost of paradise. Is this valley salvation—or a trap from which no one returns?
This edition, edited and introduced by Lucius Madison, features refined language, restored formatting, and a fresh foreword placing Vivian’s work in the context of early fantasy and weird fiction. Ideal for readers of classic speculative literature rediscovered.
268 pages, Paperback
Published June 25, 2025
About the author
E. Charles Vivian
98 books3 followersWorking name of UK editor and author of popular fiction (1882-1947), born Charles Henry Cannell but apparently changing his name legally to Evelyn Charles Henry Vivian in early adulthood, though he wrote some non-genre novels as Charles Cannell, and some short fiction as by Sydney Barrie Lynd, Galbraith Nicolson and A. K. Walton.
Prior to becoming a writer, Cannell was a former soldier in the Boer War and journalist for The Daily Telegraph. Cannell began writing novels under the pen-name 'E. Charles Vivian' in 1907. He then started writing fantastic stories for the arts magazine "Colour" and the aviation journal "Flying" (which Cannell edited after leaving the Telegraph) in 1917–18, sometimes publishing them under the pseudonym 'A.K. Walton'. Vivian is best known for his "Lost World" fantasy novels such as "City of Wonder" and his series of novels featuring supernatural detective Gregory George Gordon Green or 'Gees' which he wrote under his 'Jack Mann' pseudonym. Critic Jack Adrian has praised Cannell's lost-world stories as "bursting with ideas and colour and pace", and "superb examples of a fascinating breed". For younger readers, Vivian wrote "Robin Hood and his Merry Men", a retelling of the Robin Hood legend.
Vivian also edited three British pulp magazines. From 1918 to 1922 Vivian edited "The Novel Magazine", and later, for the publisher Walter Hutchinson (1887–1950), Hutchinson's "Adventure-Story Magazine" (which serialised three of Vivian's novels) and Hutchinson's "Mystery-Story Magazine". In addition to UK writers, Vivian often reprinted fiction from American pulp magazines such as "Adventure and Weird Tales" in the Hutchinson publications.
Outside the field of fiction, Vivian was noted for the non-fiction book, "A History of Aeronautics".
Some of his shorter fiction – including "The Fourth Arm ('War in the Clouds'): a Strange Story" (August 1915 Pearson's Magazine), "The Multiple Cube" (13 June 1917 'Flying') and "The Upper Levels: a Fantasy of Tomorrow" (31 July 1918 Flying) – was sf, with hints of the Pax Aeronautica, especially his stories in "Flying". A prolific author, with nearly 100 identified titles between 1907 and his death, he is now best remembered for the 'Gees' sequence of novels (see listing on the link below), all written as by Jack Mann, about a psychic detective (Gregory George Gordon Green) whose cases sometimes involve sf-like phenomena – e.g., travel through other Dimensions – but are essentially fantasies, the most famous of them being "Grey Shapes" (1937), a Werewolf tale; "Maker of Shadows" (1938), featuring a 'She' figure (> Immortality), is also of interest.
Much of Vivian's prolific output had a mystical (even at times mystagogical) tinge. Some of his individual novels, like "Passion-Fruit" (1912), had fantasy elements, and several were 'Lost-World' tales, including: "City of Wonder" (1922), which features Asian survivors from Lemuria in a land called Kir Asa; the 'Aia' sequence, comprising "Fields of Sleep" (1923), in which Babylonian survivors are trapped in a Malaysian valley by a strange plant within range of whose aroma, a kind of Basilisk – as, once it is inhaled, one must remain in range or die – and "People of the Darkness" (1924), set in an Underground world inhabited by a tentacled species who were originally slaves in Atlantis; "The Lady of the Terraces" (1925) and its sequel "A King There Was" (1926), which feature pre-Incan survivals and further hints of Atlantis; and "Woman Dominant" (1929), set in Asia, where an aged woman rules a land through the agency of a Drug which turns men into half-witted slaves.
Vivian's most straightforward sf tale, "Star Dust" (1925), describes an inventor/scientist's attempts to make the world better by indiscriminately transmuting dross into gold (> Transmutation); this (he thinks) will make some sort of Utopia inevitable.
- See more at: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Prior to becoming a writer, Cannell was a former soldier in the Boer War and journalist for The Daily Telegraph. Cannell began writing novels under the pen-name 'E. Charles Vivian' in 1907. He then started writing fantastic stories for the arts magazine "Colour" and the aviation journal "Flying" (which Cannell edited after leaving the Telegraph) in 1917–18, sometimes publishing them under the pseudonym 'A.K. Walton'. Vivian is best known for his "Lost World" fantasy novels such as "City of Wonder" and his series of novels featuring supernatural detective Gregory George Gordon Green or 'Gees' which he wrote under his 'Jack Mann' pseudonym. Critic Jack Adrian has praised Cannell's lost-world stories as "bursting with ideas and colour and pace", and "superb examples of a fascinating breed". For younger readers, Vivian wrote "Robin Hood and his Merry Men", a retelling of the Robin Hood legend.
Vivian also edited three British pulp magazines. From 1918 to 1922 Vivian edited "The Novel Magazine", and later, for the publisher Walter Hutchinson (1887–1950), Hutchinson's "Adventure-Story Magazine" (which serialised three of Vivian's novels) and Hutchinson's "Mystery-Story Magazine". In addition to UK writers, Vivian often reprinted fiction from American pulp magazines such as "Adventure and Weird Tales" in the Hutchinson publications.
Outside the field of fiction, Vivian was noted for the non-fiction book, "A History of Aeronautics".
Some of his shorter fiction – including "The Fourth Arm ('War in the Clouds'): a Strange Story" (August 1915 Pearson's Magazine), "The Multiple Cube" (13 June 1917 'Flying') and "The Upper Levels: a Fantasy of Tomorrow" (31 July 1918 Flying) – was sf, with hints of the Pax Aeronautica, especially his stories in "Flying". A prolific author, with nearly 100 identified titles between 1907 and his death, he is now best remembered for the 'Gees' sequence of novels (see listing on the link below), all written as by Jack Mann, about a psychic detective (Gregory George Gordon Green) whose cases sometimes involve sf-like phenomena – e.g., travel through other Dimensions – but are essentially fantasies, the most famous of them being "Grey Shapes" (1937), a Werewolf tale; "Maker of Shadows" (1938), featuring a 'She' figure (> Immortality), is also of interest.
Much of Vivian's prolific output had a mystical (even at times mystagogical) tinge. Some of his individual novels, like "Passion-Fruit" (1912), had fantasy elements, and several were 'Lost-World' tales, including: "City of Wonder" (1922), which features Asian survivors from Lemuria in a land called Kir Asa; the 'Aia' sequence, comprising "Fields of Sleep" (1923), in which Babylonian survivors are trapped in a Malaysian valley by a strange plant within range of whose aroma, a kind of Basilisk – as, once it is inhaled, one must remain in range or die – and "People of the Darkness" (1924), set in an Underground world inhabited by a tentacled species who were originally slaves in Atlantis; "The Lady of the Terraces" (1925) and its sequel "A King There Was" (1926), which feature pre-Incan survivals and further hints of Atlantis; and "Woman Dominant" (1929), set in Asia, where an aged woman rules a land through the agency of a Drug which turns men into half-witted slaves.
Vivian's most straightforward sf tale, "Star Dust" (1925), describes an inventor/scientist's attempts to make the world better by indiscriminately transmuting dross into gold (> Transmutation); this (he thinks) will make some sort of Utopia inevitable.
- See more at: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
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