William Arthur Satchell (1861-1942) was the most considerable of the small cluster of New Zealand novelists of the early twentieth century. Apart from his four published novels, he also wrote short stories, poems, a few plays (unperformed), and numerous articles for periodicals. Nonetheless, his stature, such as it is, rests upon three of the novels,
The Land of the Lost(1902),
The Toll of the Bush(1905), and
The Greenstone Door(1914). The fourth of them,
The Elixir of Life(1907), a tale with a strong element of fantasy, in which a scientist discovers a serum, or elixir, that confers immortality, may be considered an interesting but unsuccessful experiment, and will not be discussed here. The other three, flawed though they are in one way or another, do have some real merits, and…
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Citation: Ross, John C.. "William Satchell". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 July 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3942, accessed 21 November 2024.]
