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==Synopsis== |
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While exploring the remote country of north-western Australia Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham discover a settlement populated by human-like creatures who possess advanced scientific knowledge. Their chief occupation is the cultivation of malignant germs that they carry to various parts of the earth. These germs infect the human population with diseases such as smallpox and cholera. The two men are captured by the creatures and must find some way to make their escape. |
While exploring the remote country of north-western Australia Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham discover a settlement populated by human-like creatures who possess advanced scientific knowledge. Their chief occupation is the cultivation of malignant germs that they carry to various parts of the earth. These germs infect the human population with diseases such as smallpox and cholera. The two men are captured by the creatures and must find some way to make their escape. |
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==Critical reception== |
==Critical reception== |
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Revision as of 07:55, 9 November 2025
1892 novel by Irish/Australian author Robert Potter
The Germ Growers : The Strange Adventures of Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham is a 1892 science fiction novel by the Irish/Australian author Robert Potter.[1]
It was originally published as being written by “Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham”, but these are both pseudonyms of the actual author, Robert Potter.[2]
Synopsis
While exploring the remote country of north-western Australia Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham discover a settlement populated by human-like creatures who possess advanced scientific knowledge. Their chief occupation is the cultivation of malignant germs that they carry to various parts of the earth. These germs infect the human population with diseases such as smallpox and cholera. The two men are captured by the creatures and must find some way to make their escape.
Critical reception
At the time of the book’s release a reviewer in The Australian newspaper made much of the book’s “Christian” themes labelling this “a new version of…the fall of man, and the redemption.” They concluded: “It should be said in conclusion that The Germ Growers is written in a clear and flowing style, and that merely as a book of adventure and incident it can be read with pleasure, even by those who may not feel much interest in the writer’s theories or in the theological questions discussed in its pages.”[3]
The reviewer in Table Talk also saw the major religious overtones of the plot: “The motif of his book is the suggestion of a theory whereby all the evil of the world may be accounted for by the working of semi-invisible agents, who, in secluded and inaccessible portions of the globe work out their nefarious designs. Through a knowledge of hidden
laws of nature these evil genii are able to disappear at will, and to render the machinery wherewith they scatter poison germs or catch up evil-minded persons suitable to act as their underlings invisible save for a mysterious shadow.”[4]
See also
References
