Edward Douglas Fawcett (11 April 1866 – 14 April 1960) was an English mountaineer, philosopher and novelist.

Life

Edward Douglas Fawcett was born in

Hove Hove ( ) is a seaside resort in East Sussex, England. Alongside Brighton, it is one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove. Originally a fishing village surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th century in respon ...

, Sussex on 11 April 1866. He was the elder son of Edward Fawcett, an

equerry An equerry (; from French language, French 'stable', and related to 'squire') is an officer of honour. Historically, it was a senior attendant with responsibilities for the horses of a person of rank. In contemporary use, it is a personal attend ...

to the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...

(King Edward VII)"Mr. Douglas Fawcett." Times, 18 April 1960, p. 10 and the older brother of explorer

Percy Fawcett Percy Harrison Fawcett (18 August 1867 disappeared 29 May 1925) was a British geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, archaeologist and explorer of South America. He disappeared in 1925 (along with his eldest son, Jack, and one of Ja ...

. He was educated at

Newton Abbot College Newton Abbot College is an 11-19 secondary school situated in Newton Abbot, Devon. The College, recognised by Ofsted as a good School, offers education for GCSE and Sixth Form students. History Newton Abbot College was established as the Gramm ...

in Devon and was a Queen's Scholar at

Westminster School Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...

from 1880. Fawcett converted to

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, having taken the pansil (the

lay Lay or LAY may refer to: Places *Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada * Lay, Loire, a French commune *Lay (river), France * Lay, Iran, a village * Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community * Lay Dam, Alaba ...

follower vow to the Five Precepts) while with

Henry Steel Olcott Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (2 August 1832 – 17 February 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer, Freemason (member of Huguenot Lodge #448, now #46) and the co-founder and first president of the Theosophical Society. Olcott ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

(modern Sri Lanka) in January 1890. He was an associate of Russian occultist

Helena Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian-born Mysticism, mystic and writer who emigrated to the United States where she co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an internat ...

, leading theoretician of the esoteric religious movement

Theosophy Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...

. He assisted her in her writing and in compiling quotations from scientific works for ''

The Secret Doctrine ''The Secret Doctrine, the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy'', is a pseudoscientific esoteric book as two volumes in 1888 written by Helena Blavatsky. The first volume is named ''Cosmogenesis'', the second ''Anthropogenesis''. It ...

'' and particularly the parts of second volume on the topic of evolutionary hypotheses. Fawcett joined the editorial staff of

The Theosophist ''The Theosophist'' is the monthly journal of the international Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India. It was founded in India in 1879 by Helena Blavatsky, who was also its editor. The journal is still being published till date. For the ye ...

, the monthly journal of the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...

and wrote correspondence for the magazine ''

Lucifer The most common meaning for Lucifer in English is as a name for the Devil in Christian theology. He appeared in the King James Version of the Bible in Isaiah and before that in the Vulgate (the late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bib ...

''. As a science fiction author, Fawcett published his first fantasy novel '' Hartmann the Anarchist'' in 1893. He published two adventure novels in the 1890s. His 1894 novel ''Swallowed by an Earthquake'' drew favourable comparisons in London to the works of Jules Verne. He also authored multiple books on philosophy, including ''The Riddle of the Universe'' in 1893 on the

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...

concept of

Monadology The ''Monadology'' (, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz's best known works of his later philosophy. It is a short text which presents, in some 90 paragraphs, a metaphysics of simple substances, or '' monads''. Text During his last stay in V ...

. In the preface to his 1909 essay, ''The Individual and Reality'', Fawcett concedes to having abandoned Monadology in favour of the metaphysical philosophies of

Idealism Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...

Fawcett married his cousin, Mary Blanche Violet Jackson (1872-1928) in 1896, and they lived principally in Switzerland for many years. Fawcett devoted his life to mountaineering and philosophy. During this time, his philosophy centered around the idea that imagination was the fundamental reality of the universe.Who Was Who Fawcett and his wife became the first people to ascend the

Mer de Glace The Mer de Glace (, ) is a valley glacier located on the northern slopes of the Mont Blanc massif, in the French Alps. It is 7.5 km long and deep but, when all its tributary glaciers are taken into account, it can be regarded as the longe ...

by automobile in 1909. Fawcett returned to England and in 1947, he married his second wife, Vera Sibyl Elise Dick-Cunyngham, nee Pryce, widow of George Dick-Cunyngham. Fawcett died in London on 14 April 1960.

Literary works

(1891) ''The Power Behind the Universe'' (1893) '' Hartmann the Anarchist'' or the Doom of the Great City a science fiction adventure where the title character Hartmann engages in airship warfare and depicts an aerial bombardment of the city of London. Illustrations were by Fred T. Jane. (1893) ''The Riddle of the Universe: Being an Attempt to Determine the First Principles of Metaphysic'' (1894) ''Swallowed by an Earthquake'' a

subterranean fiction Subterranean fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction, which focuses on fictional underground settings, sometimes at the Inner core, center of the Earth or otherwise deep below the surface. The genre is based on, and has in turn influenced, ...

adventure about the discovery of an underground world of dinosaurs and cannibals. (1895) ''The Secret Life of the Desert'' an adventure novel following the exploits of archaeologist Arthur Mannors in Arabia. (1909) ''The Individual and Reality: An Essay Touching the First Principles of Metaphysics'' (1916) ''The World as Imagination'' (1921) ''Divine Imagining: An Essay on the First Principles of Philosophy''. (1936) ''From Heston to the High Alps: A Chat About Joy-Flying''

References

External links

Edward Douglas Fawcett
on Theosophy Wiki
E. Douglas Fawcett (1866–1960)
on Keverel Chess * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fawcett, Edward Douglas 1866 births 1960 deaths English Buddhists English expatriates in Switzerland English mountain climbers 19th-century English philosophers 20th-century English philosophers English science fiction writers English Theosophists Idealists People educated at Westminster School, London People from Hove

Life

Literary works

References

Further reading

External links