Miles de Selby

Miles de Selby was the author of Letters from Earth, a book published in 1993. In one letter, de Selby discussed the popularity of magic, gurus and spirit-healers in India. He noted that groups of men calling themselves "rationalists" had begun to travel from town to town in large buses, debunking medicine-men and witchcraft. De Selby remarked that their chanted battle-cries and hymns about the wonders of rationalism ironically seemed quite superstitious. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet)

Behind the scenes

 * Miles de Selby does not appear in the events of Christmas on a Rational Planet, and is mentioned only once, when he is quoted in the epigram for the third part of the novel. His name appears to be a reference to Flann O'Brien's novel The Third Policeman, whose narrator is obsessed with the writings of a deranged scientist-philosopher named de Selby, and frequently quotes and discusses his writing in footnotes; O'Brien also wrote under the name Myles na gCopaleen.