In 1902, Shiel turned away from the more dramatic future war and science fiction themes which had dominated his early serial novels and began a series which have been described as his middle period romantic novels. The most interesting was the first, serialised as "In Love's Whirlpool" in "Cassell's Saturday Journal", 14 May – 3 September 1902, and published in book form as "The Weird o'It" (1902). Shiel later described it as a "true Bible or Holy Book" for modern times, in which he had attempted to represent "Christianity in a radical way." This novel was far from hackwork, and besides apparent autobiographical elements (including a minor character based on Ernest Dowson with whom Shiel is rumoured to have roomed briefly in the 1890s), contains some of his finest writing, but it was not reprinted in England, nor formally published in America.