Lord Dunsany (1878-1957), Irish novelist, dramatist, and poet, has suffered a strange eclipse in critical recognition. In his day he was regarded as one of the premier Irish writers—a colleague of Yeats and Lady Gregory who at one time had five plays running simultaneously on Broadway. But Dunsany has emerged as perhaps the leading figure in modern fantastic literature: his stories of the "edge of the world" have been a significant influence on Tolkien, Le Guin, and other fantasists.
No bibliography of Dunsany's astonishingly prolific work has ever been attempted before, but in this volume the compilers have not merely given complete information on Dunsany's many volumes of stories, plays, poetry, and essays, but have unearthed hundreds of works by Dunsany not previously known to exist. Foreign translations of Dunsany's work have also been recorded, as well as the many articles and reviews about Dunsany written both during and after his lifetime. All significant terms, primary and secondary, have been annotated. The picture that emerges from this volume is of a highly original writer who escapes easy genre classification and whose distinctive vision permeates his entire work. Perhaps it is now time for serious critical work on this unjustly neglected writer to begin.
No bibliography of Dunsany's astonishingly prolific work has ever been attempted before, but in this volume the compilers have not merely given complete information on Dunsany's many volumes of stories, plays, poetry, and essays, but have unearthed hundreds of works by Dunsany not previously known to exist. Foreign translations of Dunsany's work have also been recorded, as well as the many articles and reviews about Dunsany written both during and after his lifetime. All significant terms, primary and secondary, have been annotated. The picture that emerges from this volume is of a highly original writer who escapes easy genre classification and whose distinctive vision permeates his entire work. Perhaps it is now time for serious critical work on this unjustly neglected writer to begin.
