Atla: A Story of the Lost Island

Did You Know?

• The Muscatine Daily Journal called the novel a 'prose poem so charming and fascinating'.
• The Cleveland Leader praised it as 'ingenious' and 'absorbing'.
• The New England Farmer described it as having a 'moral tone' suitable for young readers.

Plot

The barbaric empire of Atlantis is ruled by King Kron, whose brother Thalok serves as high priest of a cult demanding human sacrifices. Kron's wife bears a daughter, Astera, while a shipwrecked blond woman dies after giving birth to a girl named Atla, who becomes Astera's companion. When the women are about twenty, Prince Herekla of Cacara in Phoenicia invents the magnetic compass, inspired by Chinese merchants. King Kron betroths Astera to Herekla, but Herekla and Atla fall in love, while Astera loves Zemar, son of the priest Thalok. Thalok murders Kron, usurps the throne, and pursues the four lovers as they flee Atlantis. The island sinks beneath the sea, and Thalok is killed by a poisonous serpent belonging to a sorceress he had discarded. Zemar and Astera found a new Atlantis in the west, while Herekla and Atla reach Phoenicia. A Magian explains that moral decay caused the physical catastrophe.