A Voyage to Arcturus
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A low, sighing whisper sounded in his ear, from not more than a yard away. “Don’t you understand, Maskull, that you are only an instrument, to be used and then broken? Nightspore is asleep now, but when he wakes you must die. You will go, but he will return.”
Maskull hastily struck another match, with trembling fingers. No one was in sight, and all was quiet as the tomb.
The voice did not sound again. After waiting a few minutes, he redescended to the foot of the tower. On gaining the open air, his sensation of weight was instantly removed, but he continued panting and palpitating, like a man who has lifted a far too heavy load.
Nightspore’s dark form came forward. “Was Krag there?”
“If he was, I didn’t see him. But I heard someone speak.”
“Was it Krag?”
“It was not Krag—but a voice warned me against you.”
“Yes, you will hear these voices too,” said Nightspore enigmatically.
David Lindsay (1876–1945) was a Scottish author best remembered for the 1920 philosophical science fiction novel A Voyage to Arcturus. Fierce in its pursuit of spiritual truth and a moral universe as harsh as it is luminous, the book carved out a singular place in speculative literature. The story follows Maskull on a stark interstellar odyssey 37 light‑years from Earth to Tormance, an uncanny world orbiting Arcturus, where each landscape is less a place than a metaphysical trial — philosophies made flesh, states of mind given weather and terrain, a gauntlet for the soul where every encounter strips away another layer of illusion in search of what Maskull’s own becoming demands of him. Utterly ignored in Lindsay’s lifetime, the work has survived not by popularity but by revelation, long carrying the aura of a cult scripture: passed hand‑to‑hand, whispered about by writers and mystics, admired for its intensity of imagination and its refusal to flatter the reader’s desire for easy meaning. It is not a comforting book. It is an uncompromising myth of exile and ordeal that detonates logic, sears the mind, and leaves you forever altered.
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Victor Gollancz would be the first to republish Arcturus as the first volume in the Connoisseur’s Library of Strange Fiction. In his “Publisher’s Note” at the beginning of the book, Gollancz stated, “This is a work of genius, if a minor one.”
Then, finally, it seemed as if the rapt attention that Lindsay’s work had always deserved slowly began to gain momentum.
Gollancz reissued Arcturus in 1963, this time as the second volume in their Rare Works of Imaginative Fiction series, and Macmillan stepped in to issue its first American release that same year. Among those American readers was Betty Ballantine of Ballantine Books, who was looking for obscure works of fantasy to populate the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which led to their publishing it as the thirteenth volume of the series in November 1968, coinciding with a third reissue by Gollancz.
However, it needs noting that Ballantine found Lindsay’s prose difficult and implemented several (sometimes infuriatingly inexplicable) alterations to the original in order to make the text more palatable for American readers of the 1960s. Notwithstanding, Ballantine was the first to release the book in mass-market paperback, which allowed it to become “a staple of college courses in fantastic literature.” And by December 1974 the paperback was entering its fourth printing.
In 1977, Greg Press issued a hardbound photographic reprint of the 1920 Methuen edition — God bless them! — which gave American audiences their first glimpse of Lindsay’s original unadulterated text.
And that brings me to our edition.
It was only after receiving our first printed proof at the beginning of this year that I realized we had acquired and typeset some bastardized version of the Ballantine text, which resulted in a complete reevaluation of our edition. Ultimately, it was decided that our edition should be as reverent to Lindsay’s original as possible because I personally feel that his message is too powerful to be adulterated beyond our usual Heathening.
So then, that decision led to a careful analysis and comparison of all the various earlier editions, resulting in our acquisition of a ’77 Greg Press edition — it being less expensive and more easily acquired than an original 1920 Methuen, and because it is an exact reprint of the Methuen edition, which means it was the only version ever proofed by Lindsay himself — then I got to work carrying out an exhaustive line-by-line correction of our edition.
As I worked my way through the revisions, each edit brought the absurdity of the Ballantine adulterations more sharply into focus so that by the time I had finished my revising after three intense months, I was thoroughly disgusted and appalled by Ballantine’s edition. Enough so that I feel supremely confident in saying that if the only version of Arcturus that you’ve ever read is the Ballantine version — or some bastardized version of it — then you haven’t read Arcturus at all.
And so, what of our Heathening, then?
I want to be explicit in stating that we have not replaced any words, phrases, or sentences — we have only updated some hyphenated words to bring them in line with modern usage: to-night is now tonight, good-bye has become goodbye, and so on.
The true bulk of work lies in the 200+ footnotes that we’ve appended throughout to enhance your reading and understanding of Lindsay’s text by supplying clarity, context, and commentary where necessary.
Finally, I’ll leave you with one last thought based on my experience with this book after four readings and a deep-dive line-by-line dissection of it — reading A Voyage to Arcturus is like ingesting a psychedelic: you may think you’re ready, but you’re not ready.
Remember: a simple, serious, and unoccupied mind . . .
Godspeed!
Sheridan Cleland
Co-Heathen
October 2026
P.S. I would be remiss if I did not mention the invaluable online repository for all things David Lindsay: violetapple.org.uk
I wish there were more Murray Ewings in the world who devoted so much time, care, and thoroughness to curating and cataloging works and information for individual authors.
A Voyage to Arcturus
“The greatest novel of 20th century . . . a tremendous vision . . . Lindsay possessed towering genius.” —Colin Wilson, The Mind Parasites
“David Lindsay—a wonderful writer! A Voyage to Arcturus is a masterpiece! It’s an extraordinary work . . . quite magnificent.” —Clive Barker
“Lindsay was a realist . . . since he singularly refuses to give us even the most provisional final answer to the riddles he sets . . . There is no evasion on Lindsay’s part in leaving his novel on a suspended ending, for that suspended ending is us.” —George Hay, Horror: 100 Best Books
“As a story, its violence and color are enthralling: on a deeper level, it takes us to new worlds of moral experience. And it makes all the symbolic novels of the past ten years look soft.” —The Spectator
“Powerful, stark as the wild dream landscape of Arcturus it so beautifully describes, it makes a tremendous impression on the mind.” —Evening News
“A Voyage to Arcturus demands that David Lindsay be considered not as a mere fascinating one-off, as a brilliant maverick, but as one worthy and deserving of that shamanistic mantle; of the British visionary and apocalyptic legacy.” —Alan Moore
“The book is not allegory but vision. Lindsay’s imagery, often drawn from music, is burning and impressive. He uses words violently and cares nothing of grace . . . But what emerges after sympathetic reading is . . . a sense of the remarkable profundity and coherence of the vision. The message is uncompromising in its purity. The achievement of the book exactly balances the ambition of its intention. This, surely, is rare.” —The London Times
“Arcturus itself is not an ingratiating work; the shelf it occupies is a short one, reserved for titles more often to be found in lists than in reader’s pockets. The message it spells out is no comforting one.” —Fantasy: The 100 Best Books
A Voyage to Arcturus
Heathen Edition #66Published: October 30, 2026
Format: Paperback
- Retail: $19.95
- ISBN-10:
- ISBN-13: 9781948316668
- Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.721 inches
- Weight: x.x oz
- Retail: $29.95
- ISBN-10:
- ISBN-13: 9781963228663
- Dimensions: 8.75 x 5.75 x 0.875 inches
- Weight: x.x oz
Interior: Black & White on Cream Paper
Pages: 320 (+2 POD)
Language: English
Annotations: 220 Footnotes
Illustrations: 4
- Title Page
- Heathenry Flame
- Honorary Heathen Headshot: David Lindsay
- End Title
- Fiction / Psychological
- Fiction / Visionary & Metaphysical
- Philosophy / Movements / Existentialism
