You’ll have to forgive me up front. I’m about to quote someone, but I don’t remember who, and I couldn’t find it again before writing this. My apologies, because when an idea like this one isn’t mine, I like to attribute it. For what it’s worth, I ran into this on Twitter, somewhere among the writers of the modern PulpRev movement some four months ago.

“When I was a teenager, I used to think things like swearing, sex, and graphic violence were what made a fantasy story ‘adult.’ I thought simple stories about honorable heroes doing honorable things were childish. Now that I’m an adult, it’s the opposite. I think the only truly adult fantasies center on simple themes like love, honor, and courage.”

By that metric, Abraham Grace Merritt, better known by his byline A. Merritt, born 137 years ago today, wrote one of the most adult fantasy novels of all time. That novel is 1924’s The Ship of Ishtar, and if you’ve never read it, I highly encourage you to stop what you’re doing and nab a copy right away.

Yes, a hard copy. Because as much as I love being able to tote an entire library of ebooks around in my back pocket, The Ship of Ishtar is a book you’re going to want to place proudly alongside your well-loved copies of Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other timeless fantasists.

The story centers on a man named John Kenton, a wealthy American playboy and antiquarian. Kenton, like many from his generation, has lost his passion and zest for life in the savage trenches of WWI. Life holds nothing for him, not even the scholarly excitement he once felt plumbing the unknown mysteries of the past. He is simply existing, living in his sprawling New York apartment with his servants. 

All that changes when he receives a mysterious Babylonian artifact from an old colleague, an ancient cement block containing an intricately detailed model ship. Something about the ship--half ivory and half jet--sparks that old excitement in Kenton. Warning inscriptions name both Ishtar and Nergal, the Babylonian deities of love and death. Stranger still, there’s an odd feeling of power and presence emanating from the ship. The more he focuses on it, the more detailed it seems to get, almost as if new figures and pieces are springing to life before his eyes.

Moments later, Kenton finds himself falling and landing on that ship, or rather, onto the real ship the jeweled model in his apartment is meant to represent. Now, trapped in a strange world on a seemingly endless sea, Kenton understands certain details of the ship were far from symbolic. The ship is a physical and spiritual battleground in an apparently endless contest between Ishtar, who rules the white, ivory bow of the ship, and Nergal, ruler of the black stern.

Kenton, newcomer and outsider, must quickly choose a side or die.

On its surface, The Ship of Ishtar is a story about the power of love, the literal “flame even the gods may not destroy.” The battle between god and goddess was triggered, Kenton learns, when a priestess of Ishtar and a priest of Nergal fell in love. In kindling and joining the flame of love between them, the two have flown in the face of their respective masters, and triggered their wrath. More directly, it’s the story of John Kenton’s romance with Ishtar’s priestess Sharane. A good chunk of the story is taken up with Kenton’s efforts to prove himself worthy, to become both “master of the ship and master of Sharane.”

But what makes The Ship of Ishtar truly special, what makes it stand head and shoulders above so many similar “get-the-girl” type adventures, is that Sharane is only a part of what’s missing from John Kenton’s life, something Merritt subtly emphasizes.

The novel’s basic set-up, of a man suffering from ennui and finding his purpose again through fantastic adventures on another world, is a fairly well-worn trope. Cirsova editor P. Alexander has pointed out that many first wave Sword & Planet heroes fit this mold, as do a great number of heroes from the ‘60s and ‘70s pulp revival. Upon reflection, it’s hardly surprising. Times that produce a large number of disillusioned fatalists in real life are sure to also produce fantasies about disillusioned fatalist finding a sense of wonder, zest, and joie de vivre again. For further evidence, witness the current popularity of the LitRPG and Japanese isekai (literally “another world”) genres.

But while many genre stories have explored that theme over the years, I’d argue few have ever done so have done so as thoroughly or as effectively as The Ship of Ishtar.

Like in many such tales, the world of the ship and its warring gods is presented as more vibrant, real, and vital than the world John Kenton leaves behind. His New York apartment is dull and lifeless by comparison, and when he finally has the chance to explain the modern world to ancient warriors Sigurd the Norseman and Zubran the Persian, he finds himself agreeing with their abject revulsion.

But Merritt’s best tool for driving his point home is the device of Kenton’s repeated “return trips” to his apartment. At various points throughout his adventure, and always at critical moments, his connection with the world of the ship weakens. He awakens again in his home, having lived many weeks or months on the ship when just hours have gone by in the “real” world.

In these brief moments, he invariably catches a look at himself in the mirror. The changes are always startling. Over the course of the story, the quiet, shell-shocked scholar gradually vanishes. The man who comes to replace him is a figure nearly out of myth: Battle-scarred, bronze-skinned, and muscular, with a keen sense of purpose in his stride.

It’s these scenes—and especially the final, heartbreaking one—that fully illustrate Merritt’s larger point.

Ultimately, The Ship of Ishtar is about the quality of life a man squeezes out of—or crams into—the time allotted to him. Kenton has a lifetime of regrets and missed chances back home, ones compounded by the horrors of the Great War. But rather than trading his entire life for a new one on Mars, as John Carter and his many imitators do, he is able to supplant those regrets entirely in just a few hours, hours in which he lives deeply and to the absolute fullest.

It’s a simple but important difference, one that elevates The Ship of Ishtar above escapist entertainment. Merritt has a strong message here, about living well and finding meaning in the time one has, and he delivers it wrapped in the kind of swashbuckling adventure that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the finest works of Burroughs or Howard.

Getting back to the opening thesis of this essay, I’d also say it reinforces my point that Merritt’s novel is one of the most adult fantasies ever written. No, you won’t find a single swear word, the violence is no more graphic than in any other adventure novel of its day, and any sex that happens is implied and “off screen.” What you will find is a thorough and beautifully-written exploration of one man’s journey in search for honor, courage, and love, after living in a world that has forgotten them. It’s also the story of how even a few hours of experiencing those things can change your life forever.

If there’s truly any fantasy story more timeless or more adult than that, I have yet to read it.

Daniel J. Davis is a writer and veteran living in North Carolina. His short fiction has appeared in Writers of the Future Volume 31, Galaxy's Edge Magazine, and Flame Tree Press' Swords & Steam anthology. He blogs about pulp fiction, gaming, and other related interests at www.brainleakage.com.