Quotes:Donnelly, Ignatius

Zirkoff, Boris

Donnelly, Ignatius. American politician, reformer, orator and writer of Irish descent, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 3, 1831; d. at Nininger, Minn., Jan. 1, 1901. Graduated, 1849, from the Central High School of his native city. He then read law in the office of Benjamin H. Brewster and was admitted to the bar in 1852. After marrying, he emigrated in 1856 to Nininger, Minn., to seek wealth through land speculations, but the panic of 1857 left him burdened with debts, and he turned to farming and the practice of law. Soon after, he entered politics as a Republican and found himself in Congress where he spent three terms, 1863-69. Famous for his oratory, he fought for a number of years for various progressive reforms, espoused the cause of abolitionism and universal education, and later edited the Anti-Monopolist. His ideas were often considered “visionary” and “radical,” and he had to contend with fierce opposition, but some of these ideas later became accomplished facts.

His literary career dates from about 1878. Donnelly was a great lover of books, had collected an excellent library, read very widely, and was inclined, in literature as well as in politics, to espouse unpopular causes. Unlike many contemporary members of Congress, he had devoted the large amount of time on his hands to assiduous study in the Library of Congress, with the result that, after a short time in retirement, he produced his first work entitled Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (New York and London: Harper & Bros., 1882, x, 490 pp., ill.), a book which passed through upward of twenty editions in America, and several in England. This critical study of the whole Atlantis problem, written by a man of such an encyclopaedic mind, has had a great effect upon scientific thought both in Europe and America. Donnelly 645 may well be considered the father of modem Atlantology, and his work set the compass for serious research, marshalling a great mass of well-observed and ably reasoned material concerning the mutual interrelation existing between languages, cultures, customs and so forth. The popularity of this work never died out, as is shown by the appearance of a revised edition edited by the scholarly Egerton Sykes (New York: Harper & Bros., 1949, xx, 355 pp., ill.). It appears that Gladstone, four times Prime Minister of Britain, not only wrote Donnelly and congratulated him, but in 1882 asked the Cabinet to approve funds for the sending of a ship to trace out the outline of Atlantis in the Atlantic. However, Gladstone failed to secure the necessary support from the Treasury. Today, when more than five thousand works have been published dealing with Atlantis and other submerged continents, it can be definitely stated that a majority of scientists consider the work of Donnelly as epoch-making and look upon him as a pioneer in this field of research.

Donnelly’s second book was Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883) which passed through eleven editions; his third one: The Great Cryptogram (1888) attempted to prove that Francis Bacon had written the plays attributed to Shakespeare. The royalties from his first two books and the lecture engagements which Donnelly was called upon to fill, brought him a secure income. He made a trip to Europe and became a frequent contributor to the North American Review. He also wrote a novel called Caesar s Column; a Story of the Twentieth Century (1891) which had similarities with Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward and sold 60,000 copies in one year.

Donnelly was a man of forceful character and his disregard for conventions extended from the realm of politics and literature to his personal habits and beliefs. Bom into the Catholic Church, he failed to embrace that faith and eventually became interested in Spiritualism. Left a widower in his sixties, he took to himself a bride of twenty-one. He was a man of unfailing wit and humor, a favorite as an orator, well-known for his hospitality, beloved by his neighbors, sought after as a friend. Settled in Minnesota, he became known as the “Sage of Nininger.”

The Donnelly Papers, incl. numerous MSS., letter-books and scrapbooks, are in the possession of the Minnesota Historical Society, and are there available for use.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, pp. 644-645