David Douglas

Archipelago is one of the most important and influential literary magazines of the last twenty years. Running to twelve editions, it was edited by Andrew McNeillie, with the assistance later of James McDonald Lockhart, and began as an attempt to reimagine the relationships between the islands of Ireland and Britain. Archipelago has brought together established and emerging artists in creative conversations that have transformed the study of islands, coasts and waterways. It journeys from the Shetlands to Cornwall, from the Aran Islands to the coast of Yorkshire, tracing the cultures of diverse zones through some of the best in contemporary writing about place and people. This collection gathers poetry, prose and visual art in clusters grouped around the Irish and British archipelago, with contributions from an array of significant artists. It includes newly commissioned work as well as an interview between Andrew McNeillie and Robert Macfarlane on the development of Archipelago across the years.

David Douglas (1799–1834), the influential Scottish botanist and plant collector, trained as a gardener before attending Perth College and Glasgow University. His genius for botany flourished and his talents came to the attention of the Royal Horticultural Society. With the society's backing he went to North America in 1823, beginning his life-long fascination with the region's flora. He discovered thousands of new species and introduced 240 of them to Britain, including the Douglas fir. Douglas continued to explore and discover plant species until his death in the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) in 1834. This remarkable journal, which remained unpublished until 1914, describes his adventures in North America during 1823–7. It also includes extracts from his journal of his explorations of Hawaii during 1833–4. The appendices include a listing of the plants Douglas introduced to Britain, and contemporary accounts of investigations into the mysterious circumstances of his death.

Armchair fiction presents extra-large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. David Douglas's "The Silver God of the Orang Hutan, Illustrated Edition" is the nineteenth installment of our "Lost World-Lost Race Classics" series. In this tale, there's a monstrous beast in darn near every chapter American millionaire, Silas K. Horton had ambitious plans for a trek through the remote Malaysian peninsula in search of ore deposits, but he needed a man capable of leading his group through the thick jungle labyrinth. He found that man in rough and tumble adventurer Henry Boone, who was already heading in that direction on a quest to avenge his brother's death at the hands of bloodthirsty headhunters. Boone, however, was skeptical of Horton's intentions for such a challenging expedition, and his suspicions were proven right when Horton revealed that his ulterior plan was to bring back the mysterious and priceless "Silver God," a relic of a mysterious and dangerous race of people who lived deep within the lost cave city of the forbidden mountain. Fraught with misadventures and hidden dangers Horton, Boone, and his two sons forged their way through the jungles fighting off a myriad of monstrous beasts and hostile natives in an endeavor to learn the secrets of the Orang Hutan and their Silver God.