How a Bizarre Work of Apocalyptic Fiction Simultaneously Typifies British Anti-Semitism and Philo-Semitism

The West Indies-born English author M. P. Shiel’s work earned the admiration of his fellow writer of horror and fantasy H.P. Lovecraft, as well as of such mainstream writers as Eudora Welty. His 1901 novel The Lord of the Sea—which displays the “extreme style and apocalyptic themes” that, in Michael Weingrad’s words, characterizes much of his work—imagines a Jewish takeover of Britain based on the most absurd anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish power and villainy. At the same time, Shiel describes this terrifying invasion as the result of an eruption of European anti-Semitism that, from a 21st-century perspective, seems almost prophetic. Shiel then introduces a plot twist that turns his hero into a perverse counterpart of the title character of George Eliot’s Zionist novel Daniel Deronda. Weingrad tries to make sense of this bizarre blend of anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism: