Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett Dunsany Books

This book is beautiful. For over 30 years I have wanted a Lord Dunsaney book in hardcover. Thanks so much.

Lord Dunsany was one of the handful of fantasy writers before "Lord of the Rings" took the world by storm. His stories are grotesque, whimsical, humorous and solemn. And, of course, "The Book of Wonder" is brimming over with unique fantasy stories.

It's a mix of all kinds of fantasy tales: a man whose interest in his imaginary land eclipses the real world; a magical window that shows amazing things; suitors try to make a cold-hearted queen cry; the story of the Gibbelins, who eat "nothing less good than man"; and of Miss Cubbins and the Dragon of Romance. Most entertaining is the tale of Chu-bu and Sheemish: idol Chu-bu is inceansed when a new idol (Sheemish) is moved into his temple. And their resulting squabble has the power to level a city.

Dunsany's fantasies aren't as vibrantly realistic as J.R.R. Tolkien's, or as pensive as C.S. Lewis's. Instead they're like fantastical, melancholy little paintings. Some are whimsical like "Miss Cubbins and the Dragon of Romance" or "Chu-Bu and Sheemish," while others are majestic and vaguely mythic, like "How One Came, As It Was Foretold, To the City of Never."

Dunsany's writing is lush and descriptive, but in the slightly distant style of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. "Night was roaming away with his cloak trailed behind him, with mists turned over and over as he went," Dunsany writes. He handled comedy, tragedy, horror, and made-up legends with skill and imagination. And though his made-up legends and myths aren't actually in this book, you can see hints of it in some of the stories.

"The Book of Wonder" is an excellent collection of some of Dunsany's best short stories, both funny and frightening. Vivid and beautifully written, this early fantasy writer is a must-have.

This is the fifth collection of ironic yet gorgeous tales to be published by Lord Dunsany. Like its four predecessors, it was accompanied by equally splendid illustrations by Sidney Sime. Sime's illustrations add to each of the books in which they appear. In this book, however, where the illustrations came first and inspired most of the fourteen stories, their omission is more than a mere inconvenience. The tales remain enjoyable - as the products of early Dunsany, how could they not be? - but this edition deprives the reader of participation in the playful interaction between prose and image intended by its creators.

Dunsany's stories are lyrical and meant to be read aloud to grownups in front of a fire. I am setting out to read everything he has ever written. But I would advise you to steer clear of this very poorly edited edition. There are repeating paragraphs, spelling errors, erroneous word replacements . . . all of which interfere with the beautiful rhythm of Dunsany's writing.

Brothers and sisters, words fail me in trying to communicate to you who and what Lord Dunsany was. The truth is so simple, and yet seems so fantastic that you might hesitate to believe it. Along with E. R. Eddison, he is the best writer of fantasy that there ever was, or likely ever shall be (the same could be said of Dunsany as a short story writer in general, and must be, because we are here to tell the truth for a change). Tolkien, for example, is nothing but a pale shadow cast by the sun that is Dunsany; Lovecraft was a rather silly-seeming imitation. Once you have drunk from this well nothing else even comes close; it will almost ruin you for other writers. The question is, if he is just the deepest, saddest, funniest, most clever, most beautiful, and again excepting only Eddison the flat-out best writer of any kind the latter-day Western world has produced -- and he is, brothers and sisters, he IS -- why doesn't everyone know about it? Why has he fallen into obscurity?

The reason is simple and obvious. Look around you. The world has gone mad. We have lost all connection to the real. And this great man, this Lord Dunsany, saw it, saw it before almost anyone, saw it happening all around him. And he went out and wrote stories about it, stories that are the least real things ever created on the surface -- but touch the very highest levels of reality in their deeper parts. It is just those parts that are invisible or despised in our mad world, and that is why he is hated, ignored, forgotten -- by all but a few, a few who can peer through those veils of madness. Dunsany's work is not escapism. It is literature, literature of the highest order; literature of an exponentially higher order than any of the garbage pushed down our throats by the academics and pseudointellecutal humanities majors whose task it is to maintain this madhouse of a world -- you know, the kinds of people who despise Lord of the Rings and talk themselves into believing that deviant, culture-destroying nut cases such as James Joyce are great writers.

Brothers and sisters, you have found the source of that which you have so long sought. This book, all his best books, are a door into another world, a saner and better world, a world within you waiting to be discovered. Buy this book. Buy all of Dunsany's short story collections, especially the early ones. They will haunt your dreams forever and if you let them, they might even change your life, all without your noticing quite how, why, or when.

This collection ranges from new takes on 1001 Arabian Nights to pastoral English dreams. Lord Dunsany remains one of the formost modern fantasy writers.

While I'm not a die-hard fan of fantasy and science fiction, I really liked this collection of short stories, which transcend the usual definitions of the genre. Unlike some readers who believe that obscure literary gems like these tales should be hallowed in the dusty stacks of libraries, I salute the publisher who has made these amazing works available again - I certainly would have never stumbled upon this book otherwise! Edgy like Lovecraft (whom I adore), these stories reflect a sense of wonder and imagination that is often missing from the fiction of today - a great read, highly recommended!

I have just received this book in the mail and I am sending it back on Monday. For one thing, the materials this book is constructed out of are very cheap. The cover picture is made with an off-the-shelf 3D graphics program and done in a very amateurish manner. The title "The Hashish Man" was chosen purely to attract what the publishers thought of as a "hip" target audience and smacks at Lord Dunsany's sober genius. Lord Dunsany never took drugs and one would know where he got his inspiration if they read any books about him. Of course, because our times produce writers of infertile minds we automatically assume he had to have been on a drug to write these beautiful and imaginative stories. The publishers are associating Lord Dunsany with "the Hashish Man", the title of this anthology, when in fact in his (fictional) short story Lord Dunsany is approached by the "Hashish Man" who relates to Lord Dunsany how HE travels to dream worlds (via hashish) which is in contrast with Lord Dunsany.

Besides trashing Lord Dunsany's character the introduction is a bad two-page college essay written by a person who is totally unknown. Who is Jon Longhi of San Francisco? Here are a few pathetic quotes by Mr. Longhi: Describing Lord Dunsany's writing, "At times these details veer toward the noisome realm of elves and hobbits". The "realm of elves and hobbits" is only "noisome" because the publishers think that readers of H.P. Lovecraft don't like fantasy writing and that Tolkien is not popular right now. However when Ballantine Books published "The King Of Elfland's Daughter" in 1977, when Tolkien was the flavor of the month with publishers, they boasted "A fantasy novel in a class with the Tolkien books!," which ever way the wind blows I guess. Another quote: "psychedelic rave-up of language and imagery...it's great fun riding on the hallucinations." More drug association. "Captain Shard pilots a boat which sails across the desert on huge wheels, just like the main vehicle in the movie Time Bandits." Doesn't this sound childish? What main vehicle in Time Bandits? The only thing with sails in that movie was the ship on the giant's head, but it did not have wheels. Mr. Longhi might be thinking of the building with sails traversing barren wastelands manned by the intrepid crew of the Crimson Assurance Co. in the mini-movie before Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

Either this guy is an absolute idiot or he is just failing miserably to convince me that he is really anything like the people he is trying to reach. Mr. Longhi, like some desperate college sophomore, has padded out his introduction with a variety of multi-syllabic words in the hopes of impressing the average (ignorant) reader. This introduction should be in an anthology of drugstore-swords & sorcery-escapist-self-indulgent-trash.

I know that anthologies of Lord Dunsany's writings are rare but I would rather have them rare and cherishable instead of common and degraded. Most libraries have some of Lord Dunsany's works and through interlibrary loan you should be able to get just about anything written by this laudable fantasist. Do not pollute your personal library with this trash. Let us not reduce Lord Dunsany to the level of pulp. Let us not patronize publishers that drag remarkable writers down to their seedy level so they can make an easy buck. We need to have more respect.

The world is still haunted, and there are yet gods in the wild places.

The gods abide, grim and wicked and gentle and brooding, in our forlorn, crazed, forsaken world. In the still of a country night you can feel them, pressing close on the wind: the forlorn gods who whisper about the crumbling hillside shrines. The nautical, bloodthirsty gods of the tropic Deep, who rose out of sea-slug haunted temples in the Pacific to feast on the anguish of Captain Cook's sacrificed sailors. The lonely gods of the abandoned wastes, bereaved for worshippers and curses that once worked but now, like dying tapers, gutter and go out.

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, had magic in his fingers and a suspiciously lucid familiarity with the Gate of Sleep and the Real of Dreams. Some of his most powerful and affecting gems are displayed in "The Hashish Man", an indifferently bound but decidedly choice collection of his short tales of fancy, wild whimsy, the fantastic, bizarre, and strange.

In the 26 tales collected here, not one fails to astound, to awe, to move, to raise the hackles. Dunsany is a masterful author: what most writers would take thousand-page volumes to do, he can achieve in a few graceful sentences.

And the tales themselves: for instance, what could make ancient, fearful Charon, the ferryman of the Styx, smile and weep? Or what of the young Lord in London, who orders a table set for two, spends the night in conversation with an invisible companion, and caps off his meal with an astounding dessert?

You'll learn of the piratical Captain Shard and his freebooting crew of the Desperate Lark, who, pursued by the bristling galleons of the Danish, French, Spaniards and English, affix wheels and axles to their ship and steer her across the African sands to the Atlantic.

Or you can shiver to the tale of the Doom that came to the shadow-haunted wizard's tower of Thlunrana, or to the account of the feral man roaming the English wilds with his Three Deadly Jokes; or the weird marble goddess to which ships pray---their figureheads muttering heathen verses---at the Temple of the Sea, whence they steer when all the sailors are drunk and slumbering; you'll hear of fabled, many-spired Bethmoora, abandoned in a day, and of imperial Perdondaris, which celebrated its Great Ivory Gate made of the vast tooth of a fearsome beast, until the beast came looking for its fang.

These are not just tales you'll read and consign to memory: there is not a page here lacking a gnome's treasure of wonder, and glory, and deep, dreadful fear, tinged always with melancholy, and a surprising gentleness, and perhaps a whiff of regret.

Dunsany is certainly a wizard. He wields, with dangerous precision, the totemic power of the printed word, ever a double-edged sword. There has never been a writer on Earth who conjured up the fantastic, the haunted, the doomed and the damned like Lord Dunsany.

If his sorcery-infused writings, heavy with the aroma of deep sleep, were traded in the bazaars of his tales, a single page might bring a wagon-load of precious spice, or a vat of deadly nightshade or darksome myrrh, or a trunk of gold. If I had to, I would willingly trade half the libraries of Christendom and Araby for a single volume of Lord Dunsany.

So read on, savor and relish these tales of madness, and doom, and desolation, and irrevocable curses, and wanton cruelty, and wildness: drink deep of the draught, but beware---there is potent magic here.

There may indeed be gods, and if there are, Dunsany was their Prophet and Oracle: Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany and Votary of the Strange. May they sing dreams of comfort and wonder to him, as he sings from the pages to us.

JSG

Lord Dunsany's works are gradually coming back into print, a great relief to someone who has liked his works for a long time. The pre-Tolkien fantasy authors are too often neglected because of their different style, but any person who appreciates beautiful language will appreciate Dunsany's unique fantasies.

This includes such stories as "Charon," a brief story about the ferryman of the dead; the rather odd "Three Infernal Jokes"; "The Guest," about a young man who launches into a strange monologue; "Thirteen at Table," about a strange house and a fox-hunt; "Three Sailors' Gambit" is somewhat more prosaic, the tale of three sailors in a pub; "The Exiles' Club" is the story of a sumptuous but somehow strange and sinister house in London; "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" is a dream -- and a darn disturbing one at that, where a young man dreams 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"; "The Field" is at first mysterious and then saddening, where someone visits a beautiful field where he senses something terrible; "A Tale of London," where a sultan asks his hashish-eater to tell him about the far-off city of London; "Narrow Escape" tells what occurs when an evil magician decides to obliterate London; "Bethmoora" is the reminiscences of an exotic city that no longer exists; "Hashish Man" is something of a sequel to "Bethmoora," in which a man tells the narrator about how he uses hashish to travel to the city of Bethmoora. "How An Enemy Came to Thlunrana" is how a mighty wizards' citadel was overcome by an unexpected means; "In Zaccarath" is the story of a mighty, beautiful, and seemingly everlasting city and its king; "Idle City" is a very odd one, about a polytheistic/monotheistic city, now very lonely-looking; "The Madness of Andelsprutz" is another story about a "dead" city, in which the narrator is told how a certain city became "soulless".

"Secret of the Sea" is about a very sad sailor; "Idle Days on the Yann" is exactly what it sounds like, a pleasantly plotless but beautifully written story about sailing on the mythical Yann River; "A Tale of the Equator" is about the foreseeing of a magnificent city; "Spring in Town" is about the arrival of a season; "In the Twilight" is the beautifully-written vision of a man whose boat had capsized; "Wind and Fog" is a slightly odd little story about the North Wind and some fog; "A Story of Land and Sea" is the sequel to a story in Book of Wonder, more about Captain Shard; "After the Fire" is what happens when a dark star collides with the world, and what other creatures see in man's temples; "Assignation," the last story in the collection, is about what a poet and Fame have to say to one another.

As for this edition: I must agree with the previous reviewer who commented on the lame cover and unfortunate title, as well as the fact that the binding could be better. That's why it rates four out of a potential five stars. I will also warn buyers that several of these stories appear in other anthologies, so don't be surprised if you bump into things you already have. Many are from the "Last Book of Wonder" or "Dreamer's Tales" and overall they tend to the less fantastical stories.

Dunsany's prose tends to be dreamy, lush, and unabashed in its Eastern tone. There's no starkness here. Despite the title of the collection, there is minimal drug use and it is definitely not recommended by Dunsany's works. His story vary widely in range, but this is an excellent collection and well worth finding.

Before there was Tolkein, there were William Morris, E.R. Eddison and Lord Dunsany. Dunsany's richly poetic style is delicious but a bit like a box of chocolates--best savored in small doses; too much and you might get a tummy ache. These are not so much tales as fragments, dreams, wisps of imaginings. Plot takes a backseat; these pieces read more like prose-poems, and are all about setting and language. They work well together since most are about dead or forgotten (imagined) cities or lands. An air of sadness wafts off the pages. Recommended for those who wish to voyage to exotic kingdoms that don't exist and those who enjoy reading ornate, beautiful prose evocative of Swinburne and Tennyson.

Lord Dunsany has a rare imagination and unqiue gift for writing. If you enjoy imaginative and visionary tales or if you are a fan of fictional mythologies, you will like Dunsany. While the stories are often compact, the vision is almost always expansive. He adopts language and prose approrpriate to his subject matter; often dreamy and languid it is a step away from the norm. Dunsany's tales dwell in places seldom visited by modern authors. Highly recommended.

_A Dreamer's Tales_ consists of 16 short stories (I've sorted them by title rather than order of appearance); it's in print as I write this, as part of the Fantasy Masterworks edition of _Time and the Gods_.

"The Beggars" - The cloaked strangers, begging gracefully, as gods beg for souls, had a gift for seeing past the dreary surface of life in the city.

"Bethmoora" - a story of the desolation of Bethmoora, a city at the desert's edge.

"Blagdaross" - As twilight falls upon a rubbish heap, all the castoff things therein find voices to remember where they have been. Among them is the rocking-horse Blagdaross.

"Carcassonne" - It was prophesied to Camorak at Arn that he should never come to Carcassonne, but he decided to defy Fate.

"The Day of the Poll" - Since everyone in the town had gone raving mad on election day, the lonely poet set out to trap and save an intelligence for company.

"The Field" - Why is it the field of king-cups, and not the hideous ugliness of the town, that is covered with an ominous feeling of foreboding?

"The Hashish Man" - Another visitor to Bethmoora picks up the tale.

"The Idle City" - The city's custom was that anyone who wished to enter must pay a toll of one story at the gate.

"Idle Days on the Yann" - the story of a journey on the ship _Bird of the River_ down the Yann, and of the cities along the Yann.

"The Madness of Andelsprutz" - The city of Andelsprutz had been conquered, and stolen from the land of Akla. What happens to the souls of conquered cities?

"Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean" - The Inner Lands are those three kingdoms which have no view of the sea, being bounded on the west by the mountain Poltarnees. But none who had ever climbed Poltarnees from the very earliest times had ever come back again...

"Poor Old Bill" - the Captain never talked to the ship's crew, except sometimes in the evening he would talk a bit to the me!n he had hanged at the yard-arm. But just when the crew thought life couldn't get any worse, the Captain learned how to use curses.

"The Sword and the Idol" - Which would have more weight - the family of the man who made the first iron sword, or of he who made the first idol?

"The Unhappy Body" - The body, afflicted with a poet's soul that would not let it rest, was advised to drink and smoke more, so that the soul would cease to trouble it.

"Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" - What happens to the souls of those who are cursed so that they cannot rest on either the earth or the ocean?

"In Zaccarath" - The prophets and singers have spoken of the iniquity of the King, and the onrush of the Zeedians, but the King and his queens and warriors are paying heed only to their feasting and celebration, or so it would seem...

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.

"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.

"In the mists before the Beginning, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be." With that enticing opener, Lord Dunsany kicked off "The Gods of Pegana," an intriguing collection of heroes-and-gods tales that the Irish nobleman created.

It starts off by describing the creator of the gods, MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI (always in capitals), and how the gods created the worlds "to amuse Ourselves." And then Dunsany describes the lord of death Mung and his encounters with a poor man, the "chaunt of the priests," the God of Mirth, the rebellion of the Home Gods, prophets and cities and temples and finally the end of Pegana ("For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds").

When it comes to fantasy, nobody has equalled the "fictional Bible" of J.R.R. Tolkien, the Silmarillion. But "The Gods of Pegana" (first published in 1905) got to that turf first, with the littler gods under an overseeing deity (MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI -- isn't that a great name?) who made all of them, the lush language and complex histories. It's not hard to see why Tolkien was a fan of Dunsany's.

Dunsany seems to have been having a good time creating his own myths and legends. But even so, there's a feeling of melancholy to "The Gods of Pegana," and the sense that even at the beginning of the world, things are headed straight for the apocalyptic end. There's little of Dunsany's humor and irony in these stories, though his semi-mythic, descriptive language is very much present ("... then shine the blue eyes of the gods like sunlight on the sea, where each god sits upon his mountain.")

Before the Silmarillion, there was "The Gods of Pegana." This enticing early fantasy is a wonderful example of the invented myth, and a good read for fans of the classic fantasies.

Herein the reader is introduced to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, who created all the lesser gods to play amongst the worlds. There is Kib, creator of all life, and Mung, who takes it away with but a signing of his hands. Meet Sish, the lord and master of Time, and Skarl the Drummer, whose beating can be heard throughout the heavens. Slid is also here, who frolics within the currents of countless rivers and rides the foam atop the waves of all the seas. There are also stories of the lesser home gods to be found, as well as the priests and prophets of Pegana.

Naturally, this isn't a book that presents a story with a beginning, middle, or end. It is really just snippets of history and gods of the land. You can't really read it one chapter at a time, it has to be read all the way through for the reader to get a complete sense of its grandeur. It stretches from the very beginning of time to its end and then back again. After you're done, you don't remember much of the details of the individual stories, but the sense of wonder remains.

This is the first installment of a five book cycle (followed by Time and the Gods, The Sword of Welleran, A Dreamer's Tale, and The Book of Wonder) concerning the fictional world of Pegana. Even though these stories were written nearly a century ago, they have had a great influence upon such well known writers as H.P. Lovecraft, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Neil Gaiman, as well as countless others. Dunsany's tales also rank up there with William Morris' and George MacDonald's for creating one of the first self-contained fantasy worlds and an accompanying imaginary mythology. (Although I've always hated the term "imaginary mythology." Aren't all mythologies imaginary to one degree or another? - not that that detracts from their power or legitimacy.)

Wildside Press has done a great service by reprinting most of the books in this series. I do wish, however, that a collected edition would be made available complete with annotations. (Not even Chaosium's "The Complete Pegana" reprints all the stories involved in the cycle.) As it stands now, readers will have to make do with these incredibly short individual volumes. This book, for instance, has 32 chapters, but is only 106 pages long. And that is using very large type and with a few pictures thrown in!

Nevertheless, it has often been said that some of the best things in life come in small packages. In this case, it is most definitely true.

Pegana's interlinked stories are perhaps the most underrated work of fantasy of all time.The poetic beauty and philosophical depth of Dunsany's stories are unmatched by any other writer and his skill with the english language borders on the scary.
This slim volume, as well as subsequent collections such as The Time and the Gods and Sword of Welleran, has more beauty, poetry and sense of wonder than the vast majority of "big fat" fantasy novels written nowadays.Don't missed it.

I love Dunsany's work and I was looking for this book for a long time. I was delighted to get it & taste another good novel with that poetic, wistfull Dunsany flavour. it is a real shame that it isn't more popular. Unlike his more well known works; The King of Elfland's Daughter, The Book of Wonder etc, the action takes place pretty much within the world we know with just a seasoning of the fabulous. It's a gentle and enjoyable book, a rural pastoral fantasy. You may guess the outcome but you're likely to crack a smile on the way there. Maybe you should read those other books first but once you get the Dunsany taste you'll be happy to find this lesser known but characteristic work.

Lord Dunsany was one of a handful of early (pre-Tolkien) fantasy authors (George MacDonald and William Morris are two other important ones), whose poetic, evocative writing sets him apart. In "The Blessing of Pan" Dunsany tells of a village clergyman's struggle with an insidious encroachment of Paganism. It reads more like a Victorian novel (Dickens or Charlotte Bronte) than a horror novel - it's very homey, but with a sense if foreboding. It kind of reminded me of the movie The Wicker Man, in the way the Christian protagonist was faced with the (to him) unthinkable appearance of paganism in his comfortable Christian world. An excellent and well-executed book, but don't expect wild action.

I believe I had this read to me when I was young, and remember very much enjoying it- the synopsis supplied in the item description seems to mesh with my recollections. I know it was SOME Dunsany that I haven't been able to find, and time-travel seemed to play into it... However, I distinctly look forward to reading it and discovering that it's still not a Lovecraft book. I imagine the confusion of reviews happened because the editor is very well-known for editing Lovecraft anthologies and miscellania.

Dunsany (pronounced "dune-SANE-y") started publishing just after the turn into the 20th century. He began with poetry, then moved to plays (stimulated by a challenge from WB Yeats), short stories, and-in 1922-his first novel. Don Rodriguez is a romance that takes place several hundred years ago. Futuroscope is a romance that takes place several hundred years from now. The manuscript for this book was discovered only a couple years ago, long after the author's death in 1957.

The story is that our author-the narrator-has had loan of a marvelous device by a rather disinterested inventor. This device works much like a television set, the difference being that it sees into the future. And with two dials (completely analog, of course), you can adjust where the 'scope is looking and at what time in the future. The narrator warns that the pictures gets dim too much after the time of this story (about 2600 AD), so don't build your hopes too high. The narrator decides to concentrate on the area right around where he lives (in Kent, England), and casts about to see what time period looks interesting. He soon sees what appears to be a nuclear holocaust, and centuries of devastation. Gradually, life comes back, and-strangely enough-it is just like life probably was about 5,000 years ago. Fortunately for us (and the narrator), English is still spoken. Eventually, he finds a small family living within a mile of where he the narrator currently lives, and he follows their lives for a few weeks. This exercise completely captivates him, and his own life becomes simply an observation of some future events, events not exactly unromantic and unadventurous. Some things never change.

Dunsany's point is a life-long point (he would die a couple years after writing this book)-the modern age (symbolized by metal in this book) has robbed man of his true happiness. Not exactly a rare point of view among Brits (and, especially, those with titles), but no less ardently felt for being shared.

"These tales are of the things that befell gods and men in Yarnith, Averon, and Zarkandhu, and in the other countries of my dreams." No better summary can be given than this. "Time and the Gods" is best described as a collection of invented myths, dreamed up by fantasy pioneer Lord Dunsany.

In it, you will find tales of Slid, an upstart young god; the Dawnchild, who loses her golden ball; the hideous Pestilence; Time and how it overthrew even what the gods favored; laughter, prophecies, doom and hope, punishment, night and day, gods and human beings.

As usual, he wrote enchantingly in this book. His prose is somewhat biblical in manner, which may scare off people who prefer lighter reads. This isn't something you can really skim, as you can't skim the Mabinogion, the Iliad, or the Eddas. Dunsany had an exquisite manner of writing, and he never skimps on lush details and beautiful descriptions.

Fans of classic fantasy -- or readers looking for something fresh and without cliches -- will thoroughly enjoy this collection of ethereal tales. A wonderful read.

"These tales are of the things that befell gods and men in Yarnith, Averon, and Zarkandhu, and in the other countries of my dreams." No better summary can be given than this, a hint at what's ahead. "Time and the Gods" is best described as a collection of invented myths, dreamed up by fantasy pioneer Lord Dunsany.

In it, you will find tales of Slid, an upstart young god; the Dawnchild, who loses her golden ball, but ends up creating the Sun; the hideous Pestilence; Time and how it could overthrow even what the gods favored -- making it more powerful than the gods; laughter, prophecies, doom and hope, punishment, heroes, night and day, gods and human beings.

J.R.R. Tolkien is often credited with creating the fantasy genre as we know it. But Dunsany was one of the handful of fantasy writers who came first -- even creating mythical gods, cities, heroes and legends before Tolkien penned the Silmarillion. As a result, his stories are refreshingly original and untainted by any other writer's work.

Dunsany wrote enchantingly in this book. His prose is majestic and lush in manner, which may scare off people who prefer lighter reads. This isn't something that can be skimmed, like the Bible or the Iliad can't be skimmed. They're too complex, and too rich. Dunsany had an exquisite manner of writing, and he never skimps on lush details and beautiful descriptions.

Fans of classic fantasy -- or readers looking for something fresh and thoroughly cliche-free -- might enjoy "Time and the Gods," with Dunsany's rich writing and imagination.

If the title of "Unhappy Far-Off Things" doesn't tip you off that this is not a happy book, then the opening story will.

While Lord Dunsany is mainly known for being one of the godfathers of modern fantasy. But he also wrote a number of more serious stories, usually based on his wartime experiences. And those are the stories of "Unhappy Far-Off Things" -- stories full of ruin, sorrow, loss and heart.

In these stories, Dunsany tells of his travels through war-ruined France, where he explores wrecked churchyards where "men and women worship no more in Arras Cathedral." He tells of an old man whose historic house has been destroyed, a traveller looking for a nonexistant village, and an abandoned house that the Germans had occupied.

Then he travels to a village which has been levelled into an old battlefield, tells the story of young men at war, and walks through an abandoned garden that has flourished on its own. There are a few vignettes of soldiers in battle, and even a historic exploration of how war topples great cities and countries. "It is our own time that has ended in blood and broken bricks."

And as Dunsany leaves Arras, he reflects sadly on future generations will see this war as romantic and thrilling, rather than the horror it was. "It is not this
that is romantic, not Mars, but poor, limping Peace. It is what is left that appeals to you, with pathos and infinite charm... it is what is left that appeals to you, what remains of old peaceful things..."

It actually takes awhile to realize that this book is all about war, and in a sense, it's a sequel to "Tales of War." At one point, Dunsany muses, "This is one side of war. Mutilation and death are another; misery, cold and dirt; pain, and the intense loneliness of men left behind by armies, with much to think of; no hope, and a day or two to live."

Dunsany's writing is no less lyrical, just because he's writing (mostly) non-fiction. He lovingly describes the iron railings, ivy, flowers and wrecked cathedrals filled with trees, and his love for the city of Arras is obvious in half these stories. His writing tends to be heavy on nature, and he almost sounds pained when he describes the machinery and artillery.

In a time when war is becoming frighteningly easy, it's good to explore the ragged, sorrowful memories that are put down in "Unhappy Far-Off Things."

If the title of "Unhappy Far-Off Things" doesn't tip you off that this is not a happy book, then the opening story will.

While Lord Dunsany is mainly known for being one of the godfathers of modern fantasy. But he also wrote a number of more serious stories, usually based on his wartime experiences. And those are the stories of "Unhappy Far-Off Things" -- stories full of ruin, sorrow, loss and heart.

In these stories, Dunsany tells of his travels through war-ruined France, where he explores wrecked churchyards where "men and women worship no more in Arras Cathedral." He tells of an old man whose historic house has been destroyed, a traveller looking for a nonexistant village, and an abandoned house that the Germans had occupied.

Then he travels to a village which has been levelled into an old battlefield, tells the story of young men at war, and walks through an abandoned garden that has flourished on its own. There are a few vignettes of soldiers in battle, and even a historic exploration of how war topples great cities and countries. "It is our own time that has ended in blood and broken bricks."

And as Dunsany leaves Arras, he reflects sadly on future generations will see this war as romantic and thrilling, rather than the horror it was. "It is not this
that is romantic, not Mars, but poor, limping Peace. It is what is left that appeals to you, with pathos and infinite charm... it is what is left that appeals to you, what remains of old peaceful things..."

It actually takes awhile to realize that this book is all about war, and in a sense, it's a sequel to "Tales of War." At one point, Dunsany muses, "This is one side of war. Mutilation and death are another; misery, cold and dirt; pain, and the intense loneliness of men left behind by armies, with much to think of; no hope, and a day or two to live."

Dunsany's writing is no less lyrical, just because he's writing (mostly) non-fiction. He lovingly describes the iron railings, ivy, flowers and wrecked cathedrals filled with trees, and his love for the city of Arras is obvious in half these stories. His writing tends to be heavy on nature, and he almost sounds pained when he describes the machinery and artillery.

In a time when war is becoming frighteningly easy, it's good to explore the ragged, sorrowful memories that are put down in "Unhappy Far-Off Things."

If the title of "Unhappy Far-Off Things" doesn't tip you off that this is not a happy book, then the opening story will.

While Lord Dunsany is mainly known for being one of the godfathers of modern fantasy. But he also wrote a number of more serious stories, usually based on his wartime experiences. And those are the stories of "Unhappy Far-Off Things" -- stories full of ruin, sorrow, loss and heart.

In these stories, Dunsany tells of his travels through war-ruined France, where he explores wrecked churchyards where "men and women worship no more in Arras Cathedral." He tells of an old man whose historic house has been destroyed, a traveller looking for a nonexistant village, and an abandoned house that the Germans had occupied.

Then he travels to a village which has been levelled into an old battlefield, tells the story of young men at war, and walks through an abandoned garden that has flourished on its own. There are a few vignettes of soldiers in battle, and even a historic exploration of how war topples great cities and countries. "It is our own time that has ended in blood and broken bricks."

And as Dunsany leaves Arras, he reflects sadly on future generations will see this war as romantic and thrilling, rather than the horror it was. "It is not this
that is romantic, not Mars, but poor, limping Peace. It is what is left that appeals to you, with pathos and infinite charm... it is what is left that appeals to you, what remains of old peaceful things..."

It actually takes awhile to realize that this book is all about war, and in a sense, it's a sequel to "Tales of War." At one point, Dunsany muses, "This is one side of war. Mutilation and death are another; misery, cold and dirt; pain, and the intense loneliness of men left behind by armies, with much to think of; no hope, and a day or two to live."

Dunsany's writing is no less lyrical, just because he's writing (mostly) non-fiction. He lovingly describes the iron railings, ivy, flowers and wrecked cathedrals filled with trees, and his love for the city of Arras is obvious in half these stories. His writing tends to be heavy on nature, and he almost sounds pained when he describes the machinery and artillery.

In a time when war is becoming frighteningly easy, it's good to explore the ragged, sorrowful memories that are put down in "Unhappy Far-Off Things."

Years before Tolkien ever wrote about hobbits, elves and magic rings, there were a few rare fantasy writers. One of the best of these early fantasists was Lord Dunsany, an Irish aristocrat who poured out his imagination into exotic, semi-mythic stories.

He only wrote relatively few novels and novellas, but loads of short stories. And "Fifty One Tales" compiles the shortest of those stories, often meditations on death, joy, life and time. They're less like short stories than long vignettes, but they are striking.

In this collection, Dunsany writes of sunken ships, of Fame's prediction to a young poet, the ghost of a workman, Death trying to frighten the legendary hero Odysseus, a king dreams of a beautiful queen who has been dead for forty years, and a Spanish pirate whose evil deeds mean that he isn't allowed to die.

There is some dark humour in these stories as well, such as when Time comes across a man "antiquing" a wooden chair, and is a bit put out that his work is being done unnaturally. "Charon" is perhaps the most striking of these: the ferrymen of the dead is told by a dead passenger that "I am the last," and finally breaks a smile.

Not many authors could have such an impact with such short stories. Most of them are less than a page long, and sometimes they only focus on a minute or two. Despite this, Dunsany's excellent use of words paints some very, very vivid pictures.

Usually Dunsany either made up his own legends, or sort of coopted vague Eastern myths as they were to the Victorians. "Fifty Tales" isn't quite the same; Greek mythology has a strong presence here, with Odysseus, Pan, Pegasus, Charon, Homer and Helen all either appearing or being referred to.

Dunsany always had an excellent command of language, and he does a great job with "grey and watchful mountains," "glaring factories," and a world being choked by modernity. In one story, flowers cry out: "Great engines rush over the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the land," and in another a poet cries out in sorrow because "the progress of modern commerce" has made his songs unwanted.

Bittersweet and beautifully written, these fifty-one short stories leave behind the impression of a magical land that has faded away. Though not Dunsany's best work, it's still a classic.

Years before Tolkien ever wrote about hobbits, elves and magic rings, there were a few rare fantasy writers. One of the best of these early fantasists was Lord Dunsany, an Irish aristocrat who poured out his imagination into exotic, semi-mythic stories.

He only wrote relatively few novels and novellas, but loads of short stories. And "Fifty One Tales" compiles the shortest of those stories, often meditations on death, joy, life and time. They're less like short stories than long vignettes, but they are striking.

In this collection, Dunsany writes of sunken ships, of Fame's prediction to a young poet, the ghost of a workman, Death trying to frighten the legendary hero Odysseus, a king dreams of a beautiful queen who has been dead for forty years, and a Spanish pirate whose evil deeds mean that he isn't allowed to die.

There is some dark humour in these stories as well, such as when Time comes across a man "antiquing" a wooden chair, and is a bit put out that his work is being done unnaturally. "Charon" is perhaps the most striking of these: the ferrymen of the dead is told by a dead passenger that "I am the last," and finally breaks a smile.

Not many authors could have such an impact with such short stories. Most of them are less than a page long, and sometimes they only focus on a minute or two. Despite this, Dunsany's excellent use of words paints some very, very vivid pictures.

Usually Dunsany either made up his own legends, or sort of coopted vague Eastern myths as they were to the Victorians. "Fifty Tales" isn't quite the same; Greek mythology has a strong presence here, with Odysseus, Pan, Pegasus, Charon, Homer and Helen all either appearing or being referred to.

Dunsany always had an excellent command of language, and he does a great job with "grey and watchful mountains," "glaring factories," and a world being choked by modernity. In one story, flowers cry out: "Great engines rush over the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the land," and in another a poet cries out in sorrow because "the progress of modern commerce" has made his songs unwanted.

Bittersweet and beautifully written, these fifty-one short stories leave behind the impression of a magical land that has faded away. Though not Dunsany's best work, it's still a classic.