William Richard Bradshaw

author

William Richard Bradshaw

1851–1927

An Irish-born American writer, editor, and lecturer, he is best remembered for The Goddess of Atvatabar, an imaginative 1892 adventure that blends hollow-earth fantasy, speculative science, and romance. His life also reached beyond fiction through editorial work and outspoken anti-vivisection activism.

1 Audiobook

The Goddess of Atvatabar

by William Richard Bradshaw

About the author

Born in County Down on January 14, 1851, William Richard Bradshaw later made his life in the United States, where he worked as an author, editor, and public lecturer. He edited magazines including Field and Stream, Literary Life, and Decorator and Furnisher, building a career that moved between journalism, publishing, and public debate.

Bradshaw is now chiefly remembered for The Goddess of Atvatabar (1892), a vivid lost-world and hollow-earth novel filled with polar exploration, strange civilizations, and futuristic inventions. The book has earned a lasting place among early speculative adventures and is the work most closely associated with his name today.

He was also active for many years in the anti-vivisection movement, lecturing for the New York Anti-Vivisection Society. Bradshaw died on July 19, 1927, in Flushing, Queens, leaving behind a small but distinctive legacy that connects late Victorian fantasy with reform-minded public life.