In The Murdered City (1925), Blasius, an unknown and mocked scholar, manages to create a philosopher's stone which transforms everything it touches into gold. This diabolical man acquires an island, gathers other unfortunate people, builds a fantastic city and reigns over it. The Murdered City has affinities with accounts of island utopias gone wrong and doomed superscientific cities. Science enables the fulfillment of the ancient alchemical dream, but gold here functions as a symbol of modern civilization as an irresistible force of corruption. A second novel included in this volume, By Wireless (1927), shares the speculative elements of the plot, the strange character of its disfigured protagonist, and the bizarrerie of his hopeless and fatal amorous obsession.