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Pride of Mayfield Star Lines Beached in Devastating Storm was the first short story and third release exclusively published on the North West Historical Society website on 4 May 2011 by the BBC and Punchdrunk to coincide with the immersive experience The Crash of the Elysium. This short story was another part of a range of fiction published on tie-in websites as part of the viral marketing for the experience, by a fictional transcription of an article reporting on the Elysium's crash on 17 July 1888. The faux newspaper also appeared to recycle genuine articles from newspapers of the era.

Plot[]

Transcription[]

On their website, the North West Historical Society provides a transcription of an article about the crash of the Elysium from the 18 July 1888 issue of The Manchester Guardian. The Elysium was reported to have beached herself "on rocks one half mile away from the extremities of the South Coast" and that her crew went mysteriously missing. Curiously, no storm warning had been issued in that sector and the weather was known to have been calm.

The Elysium had been transporting a confidential cargo under government warrant and when asked about it, Whitehall refused to comment. However, crew records left at Mortimer House suggested that the cargo was some sort of statue, and several eye witnesses claimed to see an angelic woman emerge from the wreckage, although officials dismissed the claims as "wild fancy".

Pride of Mayfield Star Lines Beached in Devastating Storm. All Hands Lost at Sea as the Elysium Crashes[]

However, the actual article was at odds with the transcription, as it instead told the same story yet gave a different explanation for the Elysium's crash; in the article, the Elysium had not been reported as transporting any confidential cargo, and was instead was crashed due to a force 12 storm, on the Beaufort scale, with winds reaching up to ninety knots.

Other articles[]

# Title Summary
1 Pride of Mayfield Star Lines Beached in Devastating Storm.
All Hands Lost at Sea as the Elysium Crashes
see above
2 Inquest on Mr. Mandeville. to be added
3 Shocking Wife Murder. to be added
4 End of the Match Girl's Strike. to be added
5 A Fishing Boat Run Down. Two Lives Lost. to be added
6 Summary of News to be added
7 Foreign to be added
8 The Vatican and African Slavery to be added
9 Commercial Intelligence to be added
10 The Parnell Commission Bill to be added
11 The Situation in Zululand to be added
12 Corruption Among Public Bodies to be added
13 Foreign Telegrams to be added
14 (Reuters Telegrams) to be added
15 The State of Zululand to be added
16 Germany and Russia to be added
17 France to be added
18 Commercial Intelligence to be added
19 The American Cotton Markets to be added
20 The American Cotton Crop. to be added
21 The Egyptian Cotton Crop. to be added

Characters[]

Referenced only[]

(In order of appearance)

more to be added

Worldbuilding[]

Notes[]

  • This faux newspaper appears to have been compiled from various old news stories.
  • This faux newspaper seems to have been mistaken for a genuine newspaper by the Conrad First archive of the works of Joseph Conrad.[1]
  • The imprisonment of William O'Brien and John Mandeville (the latter of which later died) was a real incident that occurred at Tullamore Gaol in the 1880s, as they had been taken as "political prisoners".[2][3]

Continuity[]

External links[]

Footnotes[]

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