The Treasure of Atlantis, by J. Allan Dunn, [1916], at sacred-texts.com
INTRODUCTION
All Around …
All Around … The New Magazine … New Story … half-fabled, near-legendary magazine of the ’teens.
It began in November 1910 as The New Magazine, became New Story in August 1911, and experienced one more title change—to All Around—in December 1915, before combining with another Street & Smith pulp, People's Magazine, in April 1917.
New Story was an exciting and robust magazine. In 1913 it succeeded in obtaining the second novel of the immensely popular Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs—in direct competition with The All-Story (the Munsey magazine that had published "Tarzan of the Apes" in October 1912). "The Return of Tarzan" was published as a seven-part serial beginning in June 1913. A month after it had ended, another Burroughs' serial, historical and heroic, "The Outlaw of Torn," began in the January 1914 issue. It was in good company, for the popular English novelist H. Rider Haggard was represented with "Allan and the Holy Flower" at the same time.
By the time the title had changed to All Around in December of 1915, the magazine was basically one of fantastic and swashbuckling adventure, and it is easy to believe that the instantaneous and startling success achieved by Edgar Rice Burroughs beginning in 1912 was influential in the pattern of stories adopted by the magazine. Indeed, Burroughs was represented in the February 1916 issue with "Beyond Thirty," a fantastic which loomed as near-unobtainable for a period approaching fifty years.
Other inclusions were in the same vein. Robert Ames Bennet who had written the popular THYRA at the turn of the century was represented
with a fine serial, "The Bowl of Baal." This is set in the far reaches of Arabia during World War I, and it involves a lost race, some fearsome creatures, and enough high adventure to satisfy the most avid reader. "The Buddha's Elephant" appeared in the August 1916 issue from the pen of prolific H. Bedford-Jones writing under the name of Allan Hawkwood. It is a tale of an ancient Greek city surviving in the Gobi. George B. Rodney's fantastic, "The Underground Trail," appeared in the last (March 1917) issue of All Around. It was good enough to be published in book form as BEYOND THE RANGE, and, even in 1970, it remains an attractive book to the science-fantasy collector.
"The Treasure of Atlantis" appeared complete in one issue in December 1916. It reflected some of the news and theories of the day with its Crete/Atlantis theme, and in many ways allies itself with the 1970 thinking which holds that Cretan civilization was destroyed by volcanic eruption. As early as 1909, Atlantis had been identified with Crete in some archeological circles, and the belief was popular in the ’teens. But the fact, the theory behind "The Treasure of Atlantis" is unimportant. It is enough to say that this story was written to entertain—to quench the interest and appetite of the armchair adventurer.
There is little doubt that "The Treasure of Atlantis" was written for the same audience that had made the Burroughs’ stories popular. Morse, its hero, is strong and silent, and despite his position of wealth and influence in a world of more than fifty years ago, he is unhappy with civilization. His partner in exploration, the great archeologist, is a character that is part-Burroughs, part-Haggard, with more than a little of Conan Doyle's famous Professor Challenger about him.
"The Treasure of Atlantis" combines the lure of the unknown, the grandeur of the fabled past, and savage, swashbuckling action. As such, it is' a fitting novel for the "Time-Lost" series.