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 and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

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

equerry An equerry (; from 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 attendant, usually up ...

to the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

(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 during or after 1925) was a British geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, archaeologist, and explorer of South America. Fawcett disappeared in 1925 (along with his eldest son, Jack, and one of J ...

. 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 (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

from 1880. Fawcett converted to

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

, having taken the pansil (the

lay 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 People * Lay (surname) * ...

follower vow to the

Five Precepts The Five precepts ( sa, pañcaśīla, italic=yes; pi, pañcasīla, italic=yes) or five rules of training ( sa, pañcaśikṣapada, italic=yes; pi, pañcasikkhapada, italic=yes) is the most important system of morality for Buddhist lay peo ...

) while with

Henry Steel Olcott Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (2 August 1832 – 17 February 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer, Freemason and the co-founder and first president of the Theosophical Society. Olcott was the first well-known American of Euro ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

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

Helena Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 187 ...

, leading theoretician of the esoteric religious movement

Theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

. 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 pseudo-scientific esoteric book originally published as two volumes in 1888 written by Helena Blavatsky. The first volume is named ''Cosmogenesis'', the second ''An ...

'' 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, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...

and wrote correspondence for the magazine ''

Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage ...

''. 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 studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

concept of

Monadology The ''Monadology'' (french: La Monadologie, 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 Dur ...

. 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 In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...

Fawcett married his cousin in M. B. V. Jackson 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 ("Sea of Ice") 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 ...

by automobile in 1909. Fawcett returned to England and in 1947, he married his second wife, Vera Dick-Cunyngham, 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 John Fredrick Thomas Jane (6 August 1865 – 8 March 1916) was the founding editor of reference books on warships ('' All the World's Fighting Ships'') and aircraft ('' All the World's Airships'') and the namesake of what would become Jane's In ...

. (1893) ''The Riddle of the Universe: Being an Attempt to Determine the First Principles of Metaphysic'' (1894) ''Swallowed by an Earthquake'' a subterranean fiction 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 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