C. Ranger Gull

Guy Thorne was the pen name of Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull (1875 – 9 January 1923), a prolific English journalist and novelist best known for his novel When It Was Dark: The Story of A Great Conspiracy (1903). He also wrote under the names C. Ranger Gull and Leonard Cresswell Ingleby

Thorne was educated at Denstone College, Manchester Grammar, and Oxford University, although he left without taking a degree. He was on the literary staff of the Saturday Review 1897–98, writing also for The Bookman and The Academy. He was editor of London Life in 1899, then joined the Daily Mail and later the Daily Express. He also wrote for the gossip weekly Society.

His first novel was The Hypocrite: A Novel of Oxford and London Life, published anonymously in 1898. From 1900, he was engaged in writing fiction, producing about 125 novels in the succeeding years. The most famous was When It Was Dark, which reached sales of 500,000 copies. The book describes the attempt by a Jew, the malevolent Constantine Schaube, to overthrow the whole of the Christian world by fraudulently disproving the Resurrection.

After its publication, the Bishop of London preached about When It Was Dark at Westminster Abbey. Calling it "a remarkable work of fiction" he said it depicts how the world would be if the Resurrection were proved to be a gigantic fraud. ". . .you feel the darkness creeping round the world, you see . . . crime and violence increase in every part of the world. When you see how darkness settles down upon the human spirit, regarding the Christian record as a fable, then you quit with something like adequate thanksgiving, and thank God it is light because of the awful darkness when it was dark."

When It Was Dark has been criticised for its stereotyping of Jews and their portrayal as intent on destroying what Thorne viewed as the most valuable element of British life – the Christian faith and the spiritual values associated with it. Other critics have also labelled the book as anti-Semitic.

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