The master of the magicians

The Master of the Magicians, published by Houghton, Mifflin and Co. in 1895, represents a collaborative literary endeavor between Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her husband, Herbert Dickinson Ward. The novel is a work of historical fiction set in the court of Nebuchadnezzar II in ancient Babylon, centering on the biblical figure of Daniel. It stands as an example of the late 19th-century fascination with Orientalism and the intersection of traditional religious narratives with the burgeoning romantic realism popular in American publishing at the time.

The collaboration between the couple was noted for its attempt to blend Phelps's established reputation for social and spiritual exploration with Ward's historical interests. Contemporary critics of the mid-1890s generally received the work as an ambitious, if somewhat heavy-handed, effort to humanize the prophets of antiquity. While it did not reach the same critical acclaim as Phelps's earlier works like The Gates Ajar, it remains a distinct artifact of the collaborative professional domesticity common among high-profile literary couples in the Gilded Age.