Customer Reviews

The Collected Jorkens, Vol. 1: The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens and Jorkens Remembers Africa

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The 18th Lord Dunsany (d 1957) was an incredibly prolific writer who delved into poetry, plays, short stories, novels, essays, whatever. His prose work is characterized by two things: clever ideas and gorgeous English. He would get an idea--perhaps, while shooting snipe or fox-hunting, and then he'd dedicate himself (and the lives of family and servants) to its realization in whatever written medium seemed appropriate. One category of stories is probably best described as "lies." He felt a bit uncomfortable with the distance some of these tales achieved from plausibility, and so he put them into the mouth of a rather disreputable member of his club: Jorkens.

Judging from the collection of stories (the writing of which spanned his entire prose career), Jorkens traveled everywhere in the world and did everything. I especially like story of the man who flew a biplane to Mars (the planets were fortuitously aligned) and what he finds there.

Night Shade is publishing the entire collection of Jorkens stories, a great boon to those of us who either haven't been able to find copies of the originals or couldn't afford these now collector items.

Fantastic tall-tales with low-key humor told by Jorkens at the Billiards Club. The old man's remembrances of unusual adventures at the edge of the world in the 1920s and 1930s are quite amusing. They include a story about a mermaid, adventures in Africa, and trees that are alive. Jorkens recounts his adventures for club members in return for a whiskey, and the club members are never quite sure how truthful he's being. This first collection by Nightshade of three volumes includes tales originally published as The Travel Tales of Joseph Jorkens (1931) and Jorkens Remembers Africa (1934).

I love the atmosphere of these stories. Dunsany knew how to grab readers at the start:

The talk had veered round to runes and curses and witches, one bleak December evening where a few of us sat warm in easy chairs round the cheery fire of the Billiards Club. "Do you believe in witches?" one of us said to Jorkens. "It isn't what I believe in that matters so much" said Jorkens, "only what I've seen."

How can you not read further after a beginning like this? Dunsany knew how to tell good stories. I quite enjoyed this collection of stories. If you like old ghost stories or Sherlock Holmes, you may enjoy Jorkens.

The Jorkens tales by Lord Dunsany are fun to read. However, the prices for vol. 1 in the series are just simply outrageous. If you do a search on Amazon you will find that you can buy original copies of the two Jorkens books (Travel Tales and Jorkens Remembers Africa) for less than what is being asked for the Night Shade Press reprint. Check your options before contributing to price inflation.