Guy Thorne (1875–1923)

This is brilliant.

It's actually utter rot, of course, but is precisely the sort of book any patriotic young chap would have been delighted to receive as a gift from a favourite Uncle or (as my copy was) as a prize for General Excellence from their Sunday School in the inter-War years.

What the book inadvertently does, of course, is tell us a great deal about the attitudes of the time, the schooling of that period and the remoteness and lack of communication. It's thus well worth a read.… (more)

This book was mentioned in a speech by Christopher Hitchens as an example of what people believe it would happen to the world without religion. In my opinion, it's quite an interesting reading. The book was written in 1902 and it shows. As expected, religious people are the good guys while atheists are the bad guys. The main assumption of the book is that people, without religion, are mostly incapable of moral behavior. As a work of fiction, the author doesn't have to prove this assumption, he simply uses it as a base to develop the plot. Other assumptions showing the age of the novel are the roles and descriptions of female characters. There is no point in accusing the author of sexism or bigotry (as some reviewers do), he was a man of his time. It is much more interesting to read the book and observe how much our culture changed in 100 years.… (more)