A Dreamer's Tales [Hardcover]

Lord Dunsany (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 2002

A Dreamer's Tales Here are more tales of the exotic and the wonderful, by the greatest fantasist of the Twentieth Century. Lord Dunsany (rhymes with "rainy") ranged long distances beyond the fields we know, into the lands of Dream, returning with reports that are fantastic, sparkling, and very enjoyable. Here are jeweled cities and ruined ones, sailors and kings of Thebes, quiet rivers and the cold surface of the Moon. Herein are the stories of the tribe that invented first a weapon and then a god; of the city that, stone by stone, went mad; of the man who disovered the secret of the universe and remembered some of it... Dunsany's prose, always scintillant yet always sharply focused, has influenced the work of fantasy writers during his life and after. His name has become an adjective. His work has become a standard. It will delight the reader over and over again. Originally published in 1910, long out of print, A Dreamer's Tales contains sixteen examples of the high strange art of Dunsanian short fantasy. The cover for this edition is by fantasy legend Tim Kirk.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 140 pages
• Publisher: Borgo Press (September 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159224016X
• ISBN-13: 978-1592240166
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,127,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Classic Dunsany, but Wildside Press edition is worthless, August 16, 2008

By 

Richard Kukan "rkukan" (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dreamer's Tales (Paperback)

Wildside Press does much good by resurrecting rare old books, but this edition of Dunsany's classic has some of the worst typos I have ever seen. For example:

Page 34: Instead of "Never since then have I seen my city alive," Wildside has: "Now since then have I seen my city alive," disastrously reversing the meaning of the sentence, at the very climax of "The Madness of Andelsprutz".

Page 111: Instead of "But the folk of the Weald arose and went back well-fed to their byres," Wildside has: "But the talk of the Weald arose and went back well-fed to byres" (two errors in one line!).

Page 113: A line has dropped out! Instead of ". . . and beat the roses against cottagers' panes, and whispered news of the befriending night," Wildside has: ". . . and beat the roses of the befriending night"--ruining one of Dunsany's more evocative passages.

And most ridiculous of all, at the climax of "Blagdaross", instead of "Saladin is in this desert with all his paynims", we get "Saladin is in this desert with all his pyjamas"!

And so on. These errors might be a minor annoyance encountered in, say, "War and Peace", but Dunsany's tales are very short, very carefully crafted, every word selected with care and precision. They are more nearly poetry than prose. Errors of this kind GLARE at the reader.

Wildside boasts that this edition is "authorized" by the Dunsany estate, but Dunsany would have been infuriated by it. Wildside needs to issue a corrected version, and maybe an apology.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The dreamer's words, August 26, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dreamer's Tales (Hardcover)

"These are the Inner Lands..." Technically that describes the fictional cities in the first story of "A Dreamer's Tales," but it could easily have described Lord Dunsany's fantastical mind. Full of invented legends and exotic characters, Dunsany's short stories are a wonderful early fantasy read.

He writes about desert cities, where the sea is only a legend; of a rocking horse that revels in a little boy's fantasies; of cities that are "quite dead; of dreams and redemption, long-dead cities that were supposedly going to last forever, prophets and swords, desert curses and terrible, beautiful gods.

There are boats on the banks of the Yann river, the "everlasting" city of Zaccarath, a stone age tale of religion and sacrifice, and the hashish man. Most striking is "The Field," in which Dunsany experiences strange feelings while sitting in a field of flowers -- a field with a terrible secret.

Dunsany had a masterful flair for exotic-edged fantasy. Before anyone had ever heard of J.R.R. Tolkien or "The Hobbit," Dunsany was spinning his stories. And while Tolkien has been the most powerful influence on modern fantasy, Dunsany did his share too -- he can be seen in descriptions of beautiful temples and desert cities.

His writing style is typical of the late 19th/early 20th century, rather formal and ornate. But the imagination of the stories frees them up. "I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me," Dunsany says ominously at the start of one story. And half the horror of that is wondering what the horrible thing is.

Dunsany is shown in his glory in "The Dreamer's Tales," a rich collection of beautiful fantasy stories. Funny, poignant, majestic, this is a keeper.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dreamers, January 11, 2007

By 

Steve Schlesselman "dogdad" (Idabel, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Dreamer's Tales (Paperback)

How neat to be able to easily purchase this great book. Dunsany skillfully weaves his tales so the reader is brought into his world of imagination. His was a unique vision. Each tale still speaks to our world today a message of morality. His worlds are very real.