In 1975, I bought the Modern Library edition of A Dreamer's Tales and Other Stories (at the fondly remembered Blue Goose Books in Ashland, Oregon). A few days ago, the other ML Dunsany book, The Book of Wonder, came my way as a beat-up discard from a library.

I propose to read these books (till, perhaps, I run out of interest) and post comments here. I want to use these editions rather than my Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperbacks (with all their pleasant associations); this way perhaps my memories will get in the way to a lesser degree.

I have said some unfriendly things about Dunsany in recent years, such as that he was the "anti-Tolkien" in that he could emphasize the unreality of his imagined worlds, as contrasted with Tolkien's commitment to his "secondary world." I take Tolkien to be the Master of fantasy. I have tried to reread Dunsany and have found my interest petered out. Nevertheless, perhaps I should give Lord Dunsany yet another try.

This could be a place for other people to revisit Dunsany, or even, perhaps, to read him for the first time.

A Dreamer's Tales includes

"Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean"
"Blagdaross"
"The Madness of Andelsprutz"
"Where the Tides Ebb and Flow"
"Bethmoora"
"Idle Days on the Yann"
"The Sword and the Idol"
"The Idle City"
"The Hashish Man"
"Poor Old Bill"
"The Beggars"
"Carcassonne"
"In Zaccarath"
"The Field"
"The Day of the Poll"
"The Unhappy Body"

The ML edition also includes

"The Sword of Welleran"
"The Fall of Babbulkund"
"The Kith of the Elf-Folk"
"The Highwayman"
"In the Twilight"
"The Ghosts"
"The Whirlpool"
"The Hurricane"
"The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth"
"The Lord of Cities"
"The Doom of La Traviata"
"On the Dry Land"

The ML edition of The Book of Wonder includes

"Preface"
"The Bride of the Man-Horse"
"The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller, and of the Doom that Befell Him"
"The House of the Sphinx"
"The Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men"
"The Injudicious Prayers of Pombo the Idolator"
"The Loot of Bombasharna"
"Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of Romance"
"The Quest of the Queen's Tears"
"The Hoard of the Gibbelins"
"How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Gnoles"
"How One Came, as Was Foretold, to the City of Never"
"The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap"
"Chu-Bu and Sheemish"
"The Wonderful Window"
"Epilogue"

The ML edition also includes:

"Time and the Gods"
"The Coming of the Sea"
"A Legend of the Dawn"
"The Vengeance of Men"
"When the Gods Slept"
"The King That Was Not"
"The Cave of Kai"
"The Sorrow of Search"
"The Men of Yarnith"
"For the Honour of the Gods"
"Night and Morning"
"Usury"
"Mlideen"
"The Secret of the Gods"
"The South Wind"
"In the Land of Time"
"The Relenting of Sardinac"
"The Jest of the Gods"
"The Dreams of the Prophet"
"The Journey of the King"

Reading the stories in order might be a good idea, but I intend to start, at least, with "The Kith of the Elf-Folk," which I first in a paperback of Irish stories found in a school library before Lin Carter reprinted it. The very first Dunsany story I ever read was probably "The Hoard of the Gibbelins," in Robert Arthur's young adult anthology (Laurel Leaf Library), Monster Mix, one of the first books I ever bought new (though long gone).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jul 21 | 11:40AM by Dale Nelson.

Dale, it will be interesting to read any in-progress comments you may have.

Dunsany causes a deep conflict in me like few other writers. On the level of individual passages and the establishment of anticipation of simple and pure wonder, few equal him. But so far as actually delivering the pure wonder, I think maybe he often comes up short. I've tried reading King of Elfland's Daughter and basically stalled out after about 25% thru.

Now for whatever reason, I tend to compare it to The Worm Ourboros, and I've read the latter at least twice, and expect to read it again. And that's the intangible difference to this point: the plot and characters of Ourboros are intrinsically interesting, while Elfland's are not. To me, at least.

It seems like there may have been a couple (at least) stories that I did like, but to me, his very best stuff is Jorkens. Arthur C. Clarke tried to emulate this sub-genre (club/bar-room tales) with Tales from the White Hart and Clarke suffers GREATLY (ouch!!!) by comparison.

BTW, even if Dunsay was a consistently appealing narrator, he was SOOOO prolific as to devalue his own body of work, simply by inflation.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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#1 “The Kith of the Elf-Folk”

Dunsany was an outdoorsman, as shown to advantage in The Curse of the Wise Woman and here, a story beginning in East Anglian marshes. (Rider Haggard’s Norfolk is in East Anglia. I know of no evidence that the two men met, but chronology allows one to imagine them hunting birds together.) The brown, soulless Wild Things (the “kith of the Elf-folk”) fashion for one of their number a soul of gossamer, etc., and this Wild Thing accepts the soul and becomes a beautiful young woman. She loves the choir singing in the cathedral, etc. but does not understand human ways, and commits a solecism (telling a young clergyman that she loves him right in the church during a service). She has to leave the rural town, and gets a job in a mill city, where she is heard singing longingly of her old home. It seems an impresario is so impressed that she is taken to sing opera in London. She is not happy there; but notices a society lady who agrees to take from her the soul she, the former Wild Thing, does not want any more, and so she becomes again a Wild Thing, which hurries back to its native marshes. This seemed like a story to be illustrated by Rackham, very much of the time when he was a popular artist.

#2 “The Hurricane”

Hurricane and Earthquake agree to destroy the polluting city of man, but Earthquake fails to rouse itself at the appointed time and Hurricane weeps in frustration. This charmless brief piece, suggesting the more nihilistic edges of Green sensibility, is something I wouldn’t accept on its own merits for publication if I were a fanzine editor. If it were an unpublished Dunsany piece and it were offered to me, I'd print it because of the famous Dunsany name.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 18 Jul 21 | 03:57PM by Dale Nelson.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> #2 “The Hurricane”
>
> Hurricane and Earthquake agree to destroy the
> polluting city of man, but Earthquake fails to
> rouse itself at the appointed time and Hurricane
> weeps in frustration. This charmless brief piece,
> suggesting the more nihilistic edges of Green
> sensibility, is something I wouldn’t accept on
> its own merits for publication if I were a fanzine
> editor. If it were an unpublished Dunsany piece
> and it were offered to me, I'd print it because of
> the famous Dunsany name.

It sounds a bit silly and trivial.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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#3 “Poor Old Bill”

Dunsany may have been trying his hand at the Mark Twain type of macabre farce here, but without Twain’s convincing “local color” and firsthand knowledge of and affection for working men, in this case the sailors who inhabit the tavern where the narrator hears the tall tale of a sea-captain’s vengeful curse and the cannibalism that the men are driven to till just one man is left. Absent is the hilarity of Chapter Three of Life on the Mississippi, with the story of the river men and the haunted barrel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 18 Jul 21 | 10:10PM by Dale Nelson.

#4 “The Doom of La Traviata”

A sentimental sketch, in which some angels can’t bring themselves to usher the beautiful young courtesan’s soul through hell’s gates and so they drop it on the roadside, where it becomes a pink flower with two lidless eyes that stare at the faces of passersby on the way to hell. God punishes the angels who failed to take the courtesan’s soul all the way to hell. I suppose most readers who profess enthusiasm for Dunsany haven’t read this piece or else have read it once.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> #4 “The Doom of La Traviata”
>
> A sentimental sketch, in which some angels can’t
> bring themselves to usher the beautiful young
> courtesan’s soul through hell’s gates and so
> they drop it on the roadside, where it becomes a
> pink flower with two lidless eyes that stare at
> the faces of passersby on the way to hell. God
> punishes the angels who failed to take the
> courtesan’s soul all the way to hell. I suppose
> most readers who profess enthusiasm for Dunsany
> haven’t read this piece or else have read it
> once.

It may prove to be that Dunsany had too much time on his hands...

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Dale, this thread has gotten me to thinking about the work by Dunsany that I don't care for, and now reading your thoughts on some of his stories, considering the immense volume of his output, it almost seems like his mind (imagination) was *always* ON, and that without some sort of focus, he just blurted out his ideas. So the stuff i liked best was Jorkens, and this imposed a sort of framework, which he adhered to much to his benefit, in my opinion.

So, in a way, he seems very undisciplined.

Your thoughts on this diverging observation?

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've tried reading King
> of Elfland's Daughter and basically stalled out
> after about 25% thru.
>
> ... I tend to compare it to
> The Worm Ourboros, ...
> the plot and characters of Ourboros are
> intrinsically interesting, while Elfland's are
> not. To me, at least.
>
>

It is not character driven. Mostly dreamy romantic, and about misty magic, crossing borders into the land of enchantment, beyond the fields we know. Not for everyone. I read it in my 20s, which is probably the best time for this book. I loved it. The very first I read by Dunsany.

Mood and atmosphere I think are prime keys to Dunsany, not spectacular fantasy imagination like C. A. Smith or Jack Vance. A more subtle sense.

Sawfish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dale, this thread has gotten me to thinking about
> the work by Dunsany that I don't care for, and now
> reading your thoughts on some of his stories,
> considering the immense volume of his output, it
> almost seems like his mind (imagination) was
> *always* ON, and that without some sort of focus,
> he just blurted out his ideas. So the stuff i
> liked best was Jorkens, and this imposed a sort of
> framework, which he adhered to much to his
> benefit, in my opinion.
>
> So, in a way, he seems very undisciplined.
>
> Your thoughts on this diverging observation?

Sawfish, I haven't read much Dunsany outside the volumes the Ballantine Fantasy Series reprinted, except for the book of his poems that I typed up, letter by letter, word for word, as a college undergraduate, and his novel The Curse of the Wise Woman. I have the Dover book Gods, Men, and Ghosts selection of Dunsany but haven't read everything in it.

But I suspect you are on to something; that Dunsany didn't have to meet the requirements of strict editors, at least as a rule. I wonder if some of his books were partially or wholly paid for by himself. I read Mark Amory's biography of Dunsany about 40 years ago and don't seem to remember anything about that, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case, although I think, also, that his work such as I've been commenting on in this thread had a vogue around a century ago. At times Dunsany seems to me like a "Decadent" but without the sex overtones. He might thus have had a product to offer for which there was a market then.

Knygatin, I first read Dunsany at 13, really got into his work at age 14. In particular, the first Ballantine collection of his stories, At the Edge of the World, was a book I treasured. One of my first fanzine articles was on Dunsany -- all praise, I'm sure. (The fanzine was Arazia, published out of Portland, Oregon, perhaps funded by the Portland Alliance of Fans.)

I'm enjoying this "experiment" of reading Dunsany in these not very attractive old Modern Library editions that lack the strong nostalgic appeal of the Ballantine paperbacks. I think sometimes it's worthwhile to read an author who bowled us over when we were youngsters in editions that lack those affectionate associations. But I don't think much of the stories I have read so far. It will be noticed that I haven't yet read any of his best-known fantasy classics for this thread.

By the way, back in the 1970s I think my favorite work by Dunsany was The Charwoman's Shadow, which, as I recall, had more plot than usual for Dunsany.

By the way, my Modern Library edition of The Book of Wonder has the Horace Brodzky endaper design, which seems ugly to me. It features ungainly looking male (if they have a sex) nude figures laboring with heavy M and L blocks. In the background, from left to right, is a cityscape that also suggests gravestones; then what might be a tree but looks like a dense cloud of smoke and fire; and then a generic rural scene.


[www.modernlib.com]

Dale, you mentioned Arthur Rackham would have suited as illustrator for "The Kith of the Elf-Folk". The original story collections by Dunsany have many illustrations by coeval Victorian artist Sidney H. Sime. Not as distinctly talented as Rackham, but with an imagination that suited Dunsany's tales well; at times visually superb, dark and witty.

Since I've mentioned the Jorkens tales more than once as my favorite Dunsany stories, I'm curious how many here have read these stories, of which there must be well over one hundred.

Similarly, I've always thought that some of Fitzgerald's best works were his Pat Hobby stories, about a hack Hollywood screen writer. Too, Fitzgerald's great reputation puzzles me; as an undergrad, it was not possible to successfully criticize The Gatsy, and by extension, Fitzgerald himself, and I suspect that the highly romanticized plot and characters of Gatsby, and their doomed love, elicited a sort of popular maudlin response as if it was a sort of Love Story that you did not have to feel guilty about liking.

I mean, to me, the plot and the main characters read like schmaltz romances for teen-aged girls. Maybe the best part was the description of the industrial wasteland thru which Tom had to pass, at one point.

Nowhere was the book as good as even Day of the Locust, a solid, but somewhat immature work indicative of better still to come.

Yes. Gatsby seems to me to be as clear a case of Emperor's New Clothes as one can find in undergrad English. You can always run down Hemingway, but not Fitzgerald.

But back to Jorkens and Pat Hobby. In both instances, these are lighthearted, entertaining tales that attempt to make no specific point, nor to convey any moral lessons. They may therefore be viewed as lesser works, and I would not be surprised if they are never covered in any literature classes, anywhere.

And yet they are very well done, controlled in pace and tone, in all ways the products of a superior writer. They should be admired for effective narrative technique and character development, since in both cases the central characters appear in multiple tales.

But, oh, well...!

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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I've read hardly any Jorkens stories -- thank you for reminding us that they comprise a major part of Dunsany's productivity. There is indeed a whole lot:

[en.wikipedia.org]

Have you read 'em all, Sawfish?

I'm acquainted with Sime's Dunsany art, which used to intrigue me but isn't much to my taste. Folks here probably know that Dunsany wrote stories to fit Sime's art on occasion.