David Lindsay ( novelist ) David Lindsay ( 3 March 1876 – 16 July 1945 ) was a Scottish author now best remembered for the philosophical science fiction novel " A Voyage to Arcturus " ( 1920 ) . Biography . Lindsay was born into a middle - class Scottish Calvinist family who had moved to London , although growing up he spent much time in Jedburgh , whence his family originally came . He was educated at Colfe ' s School , Lewisham , and although he won a scholarship to university , he was forced by poverty to go into business , and becoming an insurance clerk at Lloyd ' s of London . He was very successful , but his career was interrupted by service in the First World War , at the age of forty . He first joined the Grenadier Guards , then the Royal Army Pay Corps , where he was promoted to Corporal . After the war he moved to Cornwall with his young wife to become a full - time writer . " A Voyage to Arcturus " was published in 1920 , but it was not a success , selling fewer than six hundred copies . This work was not obviously influenced by anybody , but further reading shows links with other Scottish fantasists ( for example , George MacDonald , whose work Lindsay was familiar with ) , Lindsay attempted to write a more ' commercial ' novel with his next work " The Haunted Woman " ( 1922 ) , but this was barely more successful than the " Voyage " . He continued to write novels , including the humorous potboiler " The Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly " , but after " Devil ' s Tor " in 1932 he found it increasingly difficult to get his work issued , and spent much of his time on his last work " The Witch " which was not published in his lifetime . He and his wife opened a boarding house in Brighton , but they did not prosper and their marriage underwent considerable strain . The house was damaged by the first bomb to fall on Brighton in the Second World War and Lindsay , who was in his bath at the time , never recovered from the shock . His death from an infection resulting from an abscess in his tooth was unrelated to the bomb . Work . " A Voyage to Arcturus " has been described as the major " underground " novel of the 20th century . The secret of Lindsay ' s apparent originality as a novelist lies in his metaphysical assumptions . Like the gnostics he seems to have viewed the " real " world as an illusion , which must be rejected in order to perceive genuine " truth " . In " The Haunted Woman " , the two main characters discover a room which seems to exist only some of the time ; while they are there together , they can see more clearly and express themselves honestly . In " The Violet Apple " , the fruit of the title is of the species eaten by Adam and Eve , and Lindsay ' s description of its effects is a startling , lyrical episode in a novel which is otherwise concerned with rather ordinary matters . Lindsay ' s austere vision of " true reality " seems to have been influenced by Norse mythology . After being out of print for many decades , Lindsay ' s work has become increasingly available , and he is now seen as being perhaps the major Scottish fantasist of the 20th century , the missing link between George MacDonald and more modern writers such as Alasdair Gray who have also used surrealism and magic realism in their work . In 1971 , " Arcturus " was produced as a 35mm feature film by William J . Holloway . It was the first film to be funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant and has recently been re - released . Harold Bloom has also taken an interest in Lindsay ' s life and career , going so far as to publish a novel , " The Flight to Lucifer , " which he thought of as a Bloomian misprision , an homage and deep revision of " A Voyage to Arcturus " . Bloom , however , has conceded that his late - comer imitation is overwhelmed by Lindsay ' s great original .