Lord Dunsany

Other works:
The Complete Pegana — (1986) A collection of all the stories about Dunsany's Pegana.

Wonder Tales: The Book of Wonder and Tales of Wonder — (2003) Publisher: This collection of 33 stories includes all of the tales from two of his finest collections, including "The Three Sailors' Gambit," and "The House of the Sphinx."

The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories — (1908) Publisher: 12 tales by a master of the English language take readers on flights of fancy and make-believe. Enhanced by the author's power of expression and 10 ethereal illustrations by S. H. Simes, the collection includes such inventive tales as "The Highwayman," "In the Twilight," "The Ghosts," "The Lord of Cities," and the title piece.

Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley — (1922) Publisher: After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the reader of these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Were it merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about the period; but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent, there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out of ignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magic protects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity. Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, much as acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, until dates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive even to the eye of the most watchful historian. It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravely affected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty of the period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age in Spain.

The King of Elfland's Daughter — (1924) Publisher: When the men of Erl asked that they be ruled by a magic lord, their lord bowed to their wishes and sent his eldest son, Alveric, beyond the fields we know, to the land of faery to win the hand of Lirazel, the King of Elfland’s sweet and beautiful daughter. But marriage between a mortal and an elf princess can only end in heartbreak, and the land of Erl discovers that the imposition of magic rule is, at best, a mixed blessing. Enchantingly written and completely captivating, The King of Elfland’s Daughter is a moving and brilliant masterpiece.

The King of Elfland's Daughter: Haunting and Lyrical

After reading about Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter I went in search of it and found it at my university library. Reading it was quite a different experience for me, but people who aren't prepared for the style of writing like I was might be disappointed, confused or scorning of the slow, dream-like pace, archetype characters and poetical language. This might be especially true of fans of typical fantasy genre books (authors such as David Eddings or Terry Brooks) where a fantasy universe is deemed to be good only if it has a solid backing and an exhaustive array of facts and figures to add realism to the stories. Lord Dunsany however, expects the reader to take for granted the existence of Elfland, trolls, elves and will o' the wisps, without trying to explain them. The King of Elfland's Daughter is refreshingly free of geographies, biologies, cultures, or other infinite details that are so prevalent in other fantasy cult books.

The story goes that the Parliament of Erl approaches their king, eager for their small country to be known throughout the lands. The solution is for it to somehow imbue magic into its royalty, and to achieve this the king sends his son Alveric into Elfland to make the King of Elfland's daughter his wife. Alveric is successful in this, and brings the beautiful Lirazel back to Erl, where they have a child Orien. The King of Elfland however desperately wants his daughter returned to him, and by use of three powerful runes, contrives to bring her back to her home.

Dunsany delves into several themes throughout the book, all framed by the contrasts of Erl and Elfland. Within this, he explores the differences between Paganism and Christianity, freedom and restrictions, the passage of times, mortality and immortality, male and female, parent and child — the list goes on. Running through these is the main story thread that makes clear that everyone desires what they cannot have, and although by the end of the novel their desires come to fulfillment, it is in an ironic resolution that no one (including this reviewer) could have ever wished for. The ending is thus happy, but contains a certain sense of something bittersweet, like a lost childhood that Dunsany continually likens Elfland to.

It was acknowledged by many later fantasy writers that they were inspired by Dunsany, including (obviously) Tolkien. It is no coincidence that Alveric and Lirazel have a certain resemblance to Aragorn and Arwen in way of their courtly love and somewhat 'forbidden' romance. However, I feel that Dunsany hits upon notes of inevitable discord between the two that Tolkien neglects. I wonder for example if Arwen ever felt: 'the years that assail beauty, and the harshness that vex the spirit that were already about her, and the doom of all mortals hung over her head.' It is something for devoted Tolkien fans to think about, as well as potent storytelling. (That wasn't a dig at Tolkien by any means, just a thought to dwell on).

On the actual styles of storytelling, many people might feel frustrated at the continued use of 'the fields we know' to describe earth, and faery as a place 'only told of in song'. However, as I went through the story, I found the repetition to become quite familiar and comforting, like a steady rhythm or heartbeat, and the final sentence making use of this repeated phrase made me take a deep sigh of contentment. Lord Dunsany's other gift is his use of metaphor and imagery. For instance, his use of the priest likening Lirazel to a mermaid, and then later echoing this thought with "there was something in [the priest's] voice as he spoke, a little distant from her, and [Lirazel] knew that he spoke as one that walked safe upon the shore, calling far to a mermaid in a dangerous sea," makes this not just a book, but literature. Dunsany's soft, poetical, vivid, mellow language is what makes this book so appealing, and used to unforgettable descriptions of Elfland, twilight, the countryside, and beauty in all its forms.

A couple of times he falters when he slips into what I've described above — trying to make story real. References to Tennyson and the infamous unicorn horn of Rome are jarring, and pull one out of the dreamy atmosphere. The archetypes are expected and unsurprising — the mighty king of Elfland, the elusive witch-upon-the-hill, the elfin beauty, the warrior-king, the hunter-prince, the trickster fey — we've encountered them countless times in one form or another.

But overall, this book has my recommendation, for a novelty to see how the fantasy-writers wrote before Tolkien, and for a wonderful escape into a glorious world. Plus, you can learn some little bits of trivia that you may of not known before, for instance — did you know that faeries hate dogs? That they cause clocks to stop? That their infants can talk? —Rebecca Fisher

The Charwoman's Shadow — (1926) Publisher: An old woman who spends her days scrubbing the floors might be an unlikely damsel in distress, but Lord Dunsany proves once again his mastery of the fantastical. The Charwoman's Shadow is a beautiful tale of a sorcerer's apprentice who discovers his master's nefarious usage of stolen shadows, and vows to save the charwoman from her slavery.

The Blessing of Pan — (1927) The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: The Blessing of Pan portrays English rural life under a sign of paganism, after the fashion of writers like T.F. Powys.

The Old Folk of the Centuries — (1930)

The Strange Journeys of Colonel Polders — (1950)

The Ghosts — (1992) Publisher: While visiting his brother at his isolated old home, a man stays up late one night to settle a disagreement about the existence of ghosts.

The Pleasures of a Futuroscope — (2005) Publisher: Lord Dunsany, Irish master of fantasy, was the author of more than a dozen novels, hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays, and dozens of plays. And yet, his last major work, The Pleasures of a Futuroscope, has remained unpublished until this edition. In this powerful and moving novel, written in 1955, a futuroscope — a device that allows a viewer to see into the near or distant future — reveals an awful fate for humanity: a nuclear holocaust has destroyed nearly all human life on the planet. The great city of London is now merely an immense crater, filled in with water from the Thames. The pitiful remnants of humanity have been reduced to a Stone Age existence. The narrator, obsessively looking through the futuroscope, focuses upon the plight of a single family in their struggles to survive and fend off the many enemies, both animal and human, that surround them. When one of their number is kidnapped by a band of gypsies, we can only wonder at her fate in this brave new world of the distant future. Gripping, horrifying, touching, and fascinating, The Pleasures of a Futuroscope shows that Lord Dunsany retained his literary powers undiminished to the end of his life.