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The Secret (a treasure hunt) / The Book
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The Book

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on October 27, 2014 at 1:11:51 pm
 

The text of The Secret was jointly authored by Sean Kelly, John Pierard, Byron Preiss, Ben Asen, John Jude Palencar, Ted Mann, JoEllen Trilling, and Overton Loyd.  The images and verses in the book are obviously the crucial parts for finding the jewels.  Apart from that, it isn't clear whether the remaining text in the book is simply filler or is source of further hints.  The early pages describe how various imaginary creatures left Europe, Asia, and Africa and came to North America.  Some of those immigration details are clearly meant as clues to the locations of the casques, but in other cases they seem to point in a very different direction.  Where text, verses, and images disagree, searchers will need to make their own decisions about which source is more reliable.

 

  Byron Preiss was a publisher who clearly had a love of books.  The Secret is full of references to other books, both famous and obscure.  It isn't clear whether Preiss simply put these references in for fun or whether identifying them is crucial to finding the casques.  The known literary references in the book are listed below in alphabetical order by first author:

 

  • Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Paul Revere's Ride (1860) - This poem may be referenced in Verse 3 (although the references to the historical events could have come from somewhere else).

     

  • Melville, Herman Pierre: or, The Abiguities (1852) -  A line from this book appears in Verse 1.  Here is the original: "What we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event--the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather."

     

  • Morris, William The Earthly Paradise (~1868) -  This book is referenced on page 16 where it says that the immigrants from Persia "found the sunset land -- crimson flowers, crystal fountains, sweet-scented winds -- an Earthly Paradise." (Note the capitalization of those last two words in the text.)  According to Wikipedia, "The poem is divided into twelve sections, with each section being a month of the year."

     

  • Pachter, Marc and Frances Wein (eds.) Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation 1776-1914 (1976) - The verses include at least two bits of information taken from this book.  On page 110, the book quotes Sarmiento, who wrote "Here is the sovereign people who build palaces to shelter their heads for a night!"  (This is referenced in Verse 2.)  On page 164 the book talks about the twins Edwin and Edwina born in 1889 in Charleston, SC.  (This is referenced in Verse 6.)

     

  • Scott, Walter The Journal of Sir Walter Scott (1890) -  This is referenced in Verse 10, where it mentions "him of Hard word in 3 Vols."  The original edition of Scott's journal spelled the title word as "GURNAL" and noted that it was "A hard word so spelld on the Authority of Miss Scott now Mrs. Lockhart."  It would not be surprising to find other references to Scott in The Secret because of his role in recovering the Honours of Scotland.

     

  • Spenser, Edmund The Faerie Queen (1590) - This was an epic poem that was intended to be structured around 12 books based on 12 virtues.  (Spenser died before the book was finished.)  It is one of the longest poems in the English language and contains many references to magical creatures.  Preiss made the connection fairly explicit.  On page 13 in the book, it says "In England, the erstwhile high-honored court of / the Fairy Queen was now much diminished."  The Litany of the Jewels on page 20 also adds "Fairies of England proudly bear / Gamet, crown-jewel of their Queen." The fairy holding the jewel in Image 11 is thought to be modeled on a figure in a painting called The Red Cross Knight, illustrating a scene from The Faerie Queen.

     

  • Stevenson, Robert Louis Treasure Island (1883) - The opening words of Verse 6 appear to paraphrase the opening prologue of Stevenson's book about pirates and buried treasure.

     

  • Thompson, Francis The Kingdom of God (~1897) -  Almost the entire fourth stanza of this poem is quoted on page 32 of The Secret at the end of the narrative about "The Vanishing."

     

  • Walpole, Horace Letter to Horace Mann (?) - A line from this letter is referenced in Verse 3.  Here is the original: "The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveler from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul's, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra."

 

 

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