…A well written interesting children’s book, but its adventures are so wonderful and so quaintly told that many a parent who would buy the book as a Christmas present for his children would be beguiled into reading it for his own amusement… –Sacramento Bee, 1890s

Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey by INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD, with illustrations by Charles Howard Johnson, is a mixture of travel adventure, science fiction, and fantasy. Published in 1893, it became one of Lockwood’s most popular works together with his other children’s book The Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump and His Wonderful Dog Bulger, published in 1890.

In 2017, when almost all the news deals with the Trump presidency, The Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump drew attention due to its uncanny connections with President Trump and his family. The book’s main character, Baron Trump, is a wealthy boy with abnormal strength living in Castle Trump, and just like President Donald Trump, is of German heritage. What makes the story even more remarkable is that Baron Trump is guided by the master of all masters, a man named Don, to start his voyage to Russia. Even stranger, in Lockwood’s final novel, The Last President (1896), New York City fears the collapse of the republic in 1900 after the transition of presidential power and Americans protest a corrupt election process. Are these books a bizarre coincidence or are they prophetic? Let the reader decide.