John Wyndham (writing as John Beynon)	The Secret People

1935 serialised in Odham's "Passing Show" - said to be "a family weekly" using the name of John Beynon - one of the several noms de plume of John Beynon Harris, best known as John Wyndham. Published complete in paperback Coronet 1972, London. John Wyndham wrote many celebrated books including The Day Of The Triffids, The Kraken Wakes and The Midwich Cuckoos.

A science-fiction story set in the 1960s. The hero and heroine find themselves trapped in an underground world peopled mainly by pygmies. They are separated fairly early on, and she is kept apart from all non-pygmies.

There are clear imperial and racist overtones, which are not apparent in their full strength in the extract.

While naturism as such isn't mentioned, the attitudes implied are close to some of those which naturists espouse, although I cannot ignore implication that the heroine's nudity is automatically OK because the onlookers are inferiors rather than equals.

I find the descriptions of disrobing to swim, and of the delight of nude swimming, to be well written.

It is interesting that this material was originally published in a "family" magazine in 1935, indicating attitudes to nude swimming were fairly relaxed at that time? This was only a couple of years after Hedy Lamarr's exhuberant outdoor nudity (and other activity) in the film Exstase caused shock and delight in apparently equal measure.

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

Last updated 2002 December 21.
 
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