Creatures of Another Age by Richard Fallon

Author:Richard Fallon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2021-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

25 Paul D. Brinkman, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).

26 Conway Zirkle, “The Theory of Concentric Spheres: Edmund Halley, Cotton Mather, & John Cleves Symmes,” Isis, 37 (1947), 155-159.

Reginald Bacchus and Cyril Ranger Gull

The Dragon of St. Paul’s

Spectacular fossil discoveries and even rumors of the genuine survival of large prehistoric creatures fed what was called the “new journalism,” a phenomenon that came to the fore in the late-nineteenth century. This sensational and populist form of reportage, developed by authors and editors in the United States and Britain, frequently narrowed and exploited the ambiguous proximity of fact and fiction.27 This short story about the intrusion of a prehistoric reptile into contemporary London begins with a group of consciously modern and cynical journalists whose laxity with the truth is exploded when reality turns out to be stranger than fiction. Among other things, Reginald Bacchus (1874-1945) was a writer of erotic literature, while his co-­author Cyril Ranger Gull (1875-1923), under a variety of pseudonyms, penned lurid mystery novels. “The Dragon of St. Paul’s” appeared in the April 1899 edition of the Ludgate Monthly, a magazine whose title refers to Ludgate Hill, the location of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the London “Dragon” makes its last stand.

IN THREE EPISODES.

FIRST EPISODE.

“It is certainly a wonderful yarn,” said Trant, “and excellent copy. My only regret is that I didn’t think of it myself in the first instance.”

“But, Tom, why shouldn’t it be true? It’s incredible enough for any one to believe. I’m sure I believe it, don’t you, Guy?”

Guy Descaves laughed. “Perhaps, dear. I don’t know and I don’t much care, but I did a good little leaderette on it this morning. Have you done anything, Tom?”

“I did a whole buck middle an hour ago at very short notice. That’s why I’m a little late. I had finished all my work for the night, and I was just washing my hands when Fleming came in with the make-­up. We didn’t expect him at all to-­night, and the paper certainly was rather dull. He’d been dining somewhere, and I think he was a little bit cocked. Anyhow he was nasty, and kept the presses back while I did a ‘special’ on some information he brought with him.”

While he was talking, Beatrice Descaves, his fiancée, began to lay the table for supper, and in a minute she called them to sit down. The room was very large, with cool white-­papered walls, and the pictures, chiefly original black and white sketches, were all framed in passe-partout frames, which gave the place an air of serene but welcome simplicity. At one end of it was a great window which came almost to the floor, and in front of the window there was a low, cushioned seat. The night was very hot, and the window was wide open. It was late—nearly half-­past one, and London was quite silent. Indeed the only

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