The Nine Unknown is a 1923 novel by Talbot Mundy. Originally serialised in Adventure magazine, it concerns the Nine Unknown Men, a secret society founded to preserve and develop knowledge that would be dangerous to humanity if it fell into the wrong hands. The nine unknown men were entrusted with guarding nine books of secret knowledge.
The novel's plot centres on a group of American, British and Indian adventurers in India who wish to discover the identities of the mysterious "Nine Unknown". The novel depicts the Nine Men as the embodiment of good who protect the Ancient Wisdom of the Hindu sages. The plot is complicated by the appearance of a group of evildoers (Kali worshippers and Shaktists) who impersonate the true Nine Unknown in order to steal their secrets. The story also features a priest called Father Cyprian who is seeking possession of the books but who wants to destroy them out of Christian piety, and a number of other characters who are interested in learning their contents. The novel features several supernatural events, including the magical cleansing of the River Ganges of pollution.
The concept of the "Nine Unknown Men" was further popularized by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in their 1960 book The Morning of the Magicians. They claimed that the Nine Unknown were real and had been founded by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka around 270 BC. They also claimed that Pope Silvester II had met the Nine Unknown, and that nineteenth-century French colonial administrator and writer Louis Jacolliot insisted on their existence.
The Nine Unknown Men will soon appear in the TIME BOUND Series