Customer Reviews

Fifty-One Tales

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Lord Dunsany was a master of fantasy, who wrote even before Tolkien. And nobody has really written like him since. His works are often like mingled prose and poetry; sometimes they have a storyline, sometimes not. Sometimes they are fantasy, sometimes not ("Roses").

Many of the stories in this book are more like vignettes than true stories. Some, such as "Charon" and "The Death of Pan" are inspired by mythology. They star ghosts, heroes, dreaming kings, nameless poets, Time and Death. And all are written in Dunsany's dreamy prose, which momentarily causes the world to melt away and lets the reader see what he saw.

This is an amazing short story collection. Buy it and read one of the fifty-one every day.

If you like Shakespeare - if you like Jack Vance - if you like Fritz Leiber - if you like Lovecraft - then buy *everything* you can find by Lord Dunsany. Frankly, I firmly believe that all of the above Literary Geniuses with the exception of Shakespeare were heavily influenced by Dunsany's works. I have almost everything he has published (some at great expence), and cannot think of one collection/novel/play that has not enhanced my life. Surely, he is one of the greatest authors of all time. I bought this book to replace a copy that was - er, <ahem> - *Permanently 'Borrowed'* by an (_ex_)friend of mine... Such is the power of the wordcraft Dunsany weaves: my former friend simply could not leave the book here, unfinished, after a visit. |:o[

Regrettably, claims--mainly but by no means exclusively made by valley-girl type teenyboppers--that this or that current fave doorstop-fantasy "writer" is "the all time greatest!!" make less jejune readers wary of "greatest" claims. Nonetheless, accepting that caveat, an excellent case can be made (and often is made by serious reviewers) that Lord Dunsany is the reigning master of fantasy literature.

This charming if miniscule collection--no tale over a few pages, some but one page, one but a single sentence (but oh, my what a telling sentence!)--is a non-stop delight, richly representative of Dunsany at the height of his powers. His language use is consummate, as is his ability to bounce from the comic to the moving and back again.

No literate home can do without much Dunsany on its bookshelves, and this book is a pleasant addition to that list. (One must presume that there were copyright-based reasons why this work was not included in the wonderful six-book Dunsany omnibus "Time and the Gods".)