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Guy Newell Boothby (13 October 1867 – 26 February 1905) was a prolific Australian novelist and writer, noted for sensational fiction in variety magazines around the end of the nineteenth century. He lived mainly in England. He is best known for such works as the Dr Nikola series, about an occultist criminal mastermind who is a Victorian forerunner to Fu Manchu, and ''Pharos, the Egyptian'', a tale of Gothic Egypt, mummies' curses and supernatural revenge. Rudyard Kipling was his friend and mentor, and his books were remembered with affection by George Orwell.〔Mark Valentine, "Introduction' in Guy Boothby, ''Dr Nikola, Master Criminal''. Herts UK: Wordsworth Editions, 2009, pp. xi–xii. x〕 ==Biography== Boothby was born in Adelaide to a prominent family in the recently-established British colony of South Australia.〔('Boothby, Guy Newell (1867–1905)' ), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, Melbourne University Press, 1979, pp 347–348.〕 His father was Thomas Wilde Boothby,〔G. N. Hawker, ('Boothby, Thomas Wilde (1839–1885)' ), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 3, Melbourne University Press, 1969, pp 196–197.〕 who for a time was a member of the South Australian Legislative Assembly, three of his uncles were senior colonial administrators, and his grandfather was Benjamin Boothby (1803–1868), controversial judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia from 1853 to 1867.〔Alex C Castles, ('Boothby, Benjamin (1803–1868)' ), ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 3, Melbourne University Press, 1969, pp 194–196.〕 When Boothby was aged approximately seven his English-born mother, whom he held in great regard, separated from his father and returned with her children to England. There he received a traditional English grammar school education at Salisbury, Lord Weymouth's Grammar (now Warminster School) and Christ's Hospital, London. Following this, Boothby returned alone to South Australia at sixteen, where, in his turn, he entered the colonial administration as private secretary to the mayor of Adelaide, Lewis Cohen,〔Mark Valentine, "Introduction' in Guy Boothby, ''Dr Nikola, Master Criminal''. Herts UK: Wordsworth Editions, 2009, p. x〕 but was "not contented" with the work. Despite Boothby’s family tradition of colonial service, his natural inclinations ran more to the creative than to the administrative and he was not satisfied with his limited role as a provincial colonial servant. In 1890, aged 23, Boothby wrote the libretto for a comic opera, ''Sylvia'', which was published and produced at Adelaide in December 1890, and in 1891 appeared ''The Jonquil: an Opera''. The music in each case was written by Cecil James Sharp. His first literary ventures were directed at the theatre, but his ambition was not appeased by the lukewarm response his melodramas received in Adelaide. Hence when severe economic collapse hit most of the Australian colonies in the early 1890s, he followed the well-beaten path to London in December 1891. Boothby, however, was thwarted in his first bid for recognition as lack of funds forced him to disembark en route in Colombo, Sri Lanka and begin making his way homewards through South East Asia. According to family legend, the dire poverty he faced on this journey led him to accept any kind of work he could get: ‘This meant working before the mast, stoking in ocean tramps, attending in a Chinese opium den in Singapore, digging in the Burmah Ruby fields, acting, prize fighting, cow punching…’〔Philip M. Robinson and Leslie A. Spence, ''The Robinson Family of Bolsover and Chesterfield'' (Chesterfield: Robinson & Sons, 1937), p. 103, cited in Paul Depasquale, ''Guy Boothby: His Life and Work'' (Seacombe Gardens, South Australia: Pioneer Books, 1982), p. 17.〕 This was followed by a brief sojourn on Thursday Island, a Melanesian island in the Torres Strait group recently annexed by the Queensland colony, where he worked as a diver in the lucrative pearl trade; and finally by an arduous journey overland across the Australian continent home to Adelaide. While Paul Depasquale, author of the only Boothby biography, warns that this account of his travels may be somewhat glamorous,〔Paul Depasquale, ''Guy Boothby: His Life and Work'' (Seacombe Gardens, South Australia: Pioneer Books, 1982), p. 17.〕 Boothby certainly travelled extensively in South East Asia, Melanesia and Australia at this period, collecting a stock of colonial anecdotes and experiences that were to inform much of his later writing. Approximately two years later Boothby finally reached London and succeeded in having an account of his peregrinations, ''On the Wallaby, or Through the East and Across Australia'', published in 1894. The travelogue met with reasonable success, which was matched later that year by Boothby’s first novel, ''In Strange Company''. A novel of adventure set variously in England, Australia, the South Seas and South America, ''In Strange Company'' established a pattern that was to characterise the succeeding Boothby oeuvre – the use of exotic, international and particularly Australasian locales that frequently function as an end in themselves superfluous to the requirements of plot. By October 1895, Boothby had completed three further novels, including ''A Bid for Fortune'', the first Dr Nikola novel which catapulted Boothby to wide acclaim. Of the two other novels Boothby wrote in 1895 ''A Lost Endeavour'' was set on Thursday Island and ''The Marriage of Esther'' ranged across several Torres Strait Islands. Boothby continued to produce fiction at a ferocious rate, producing up to six novels a year across the range of genres prevalent at the fin de siècle, and is credited with producing over 53 novels in total, not to mention dozens of short stories and plays.〔John Sutherland (ed.), intro to Guy Boothby, ''A Bid For Fortune, or Dr Nikola’s Vendetta'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. xv〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Guy Boothby」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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