The Smoky God
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The great luminous cloud or ball of dull-red fire—fiery-red in the mornings and evenings, and during the day giving off a beautiful white light, “The Smoky God”—is seemingly suspended in the center of the great vacuum “within” the earth, and held to its place by the immutable law of gravitation, or a repellant atmospheric force, as the case may be. I refer to the known power that draws or repels with equal force in all directions.
The base of this electrical cloud or central luminary, the seat of the gods, is dark and non-transparent, save for innumerable small openings, seemingly in the bottom of the great support or altar of the Deity, upon which “The Smoky God” rests; and, the lights shining through these many openings twinkle at night in all their splendor, and seem to be stars...
Willis George Emerson (1856–1918) was an American lawyer, politician, realtor, and author best remembered for his concise 1908 Hollow Earth novella The Smoky God. Set forth as the astonishing true testimony of Norwegian sailor Olaf Jansen, who claimed to have journeyed through a vast polar opening into the Earth’s hidden interior, rich with marvelous landscapes, inhabited by a civilization of giants, and lit by a mysterious fiery sun, The Smoky God stands among the most curious works of early twentieth-century speculative literature. Blending Arctic adventure, utopian fantasy, esoteric cosmology, and pseudoscientific wonder — enriched by eleven of John A. Williams’ original full-color illustrations — Emerson’s tale occupies a strange frontier between the lost-world romances of Jules Verne and the visionary revelations of occult literature.
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Part One: Author’s Foreword
Part Two: Olaf Jansen’s Story
Part Three: Beyond the North Wind
Part Four: In the Under World
Part Five: Among the Ice Packs
Part Six: Conclusion
Part Seven: Author’s Afterword
The Los Angeles Times Review
Willis George Emerson Obituary
“An interesting little volume . . . Willis George Emerson has written well his mystic tale, his new journey to the center of the earth.” —Santa Rosa Republican
“Nothing of the kind has so fascinated and thrilled American readers since the days of Edgar Allan Poe.” —The Butte Daily Post
“Original and imaginative . . . a weird description of a world undreamed of by many.” —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Reads like a modern fairy tale and adds still another conception to the house of half surmises about the still unexplored north pole regions and the earth’s center.” —The Los Angeles Record
“Every page gleams with interest . . . one of the charms of The Smoky God is the masterly illustrations by J.A. Williams, for the artist has carried out with splendid imaginative force the conceptions of the author.” —National Magazine
“Said to be strikingly dramatic and intensely fascinating from the author’s foreword to the last sentence of the story.” —The Fresno Morning Republican
“Declared to be one of the most thrilling tales of adventure written in recent years.” —Kansas City Journal
“Weaving his tale into a vraisemblance of vivid reality, the versatile author has ventured upon a field of cosmical description whose marvels rival the inventions of Jules Verne or the wonders rehearsed by Edgar Allan Poe.” —The Los Angeles Times
“This story of The Smoky God is a large and tumultuous dream, put into fit and compelling language and built together and ornated so completely and properly that anybody who takes up the book will have to exercise a very considerable lot of will power to be able to lay it down without first reaching the last page.” —The Pittsburgh Press
The Smoky God
Heathen Edition #58Published: November 2026
Format: Paperback
- Retail: $9.95
- ISBN-10:
- ISBN-13: 9781948316583
- Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.24 inches
- Weight: x.x oz
- Retail: $19.95
- ISBN-10:
- ISBN-13: 9781963228588
- Dimensions: 8.75 x 5.75 x 0.xx inches
- Weight: x.x oz
Interior: Black & White on Creme Paper
Pages: 108 (+2 POD)
Language: English
Annotations: 176 Footnotes
Illustrations: 16
- Title Page
- Heathenry Flame
- One black-and-white illustration and 11 full-color illustrations by J.A. Williams
- Honorary Heathen Headshot: Willis George Emerson
- End Title
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