In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales

Marc Notes:
Bibl. ref. & index;Based on pre-pub. info. only.

Biographical Note:
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany was born in London in 1878, the scion of an Anglo-Irish family that could trace its ancestry to the twelfth century. In 1905 he self-published The Gods of Pegana, and its critical and popular success impelled the publication of numerous other collections of short stories, including A Dreamer's Tales (1910), The Book of Wonder (1912), and The Last Book of Wonder (1916). Dunsany also distinguished himself as a dramatist, and his early plays--collected in Five Plays (1914) and Plays of Gods and Men (1917)--were successful in Ireland, England, and the United States. Dunsany was seriously injured during the Dublin riots of 1916, and he also saw action in World War I as a member of the Coldstream Guards.

In the 1920s Dunsany began writing novels, among them The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924) and The Blessing of Pan (1927). He also wrote many tales of the loquacious clubman Joseph Jorkens, eventually collected in five volumes. His later plays include If (1921), Plays of Near and Far (1922), Seven Modern Comedies (1928), and Plays for Earth and Air (1937). By the 1930s, encouraged by W. B. Yeats and others to write about his native Ireland, he produced The Curse of the Wise Woman (1933), The Story of Mona Sheehy (1939), and other novels. His later tales were gathered in The Man Who Ate the Phoenix (1949) and The Little Tales of Smethers (1952), but many works remain uncollected. Lord Dunsany died at Dunsany Castle in County Meath, Ireland, in 1957. He is recognized as a leading figure in the development of modern fantasy literature, influencing such writers as J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999), and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), as well as Algernon Blackwood's Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories (2002). Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale (1990), Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (1995), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature. He lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.

I. Pegana and Environs

The Gods of Pegana
Time and the Gods
A Legend of the Dawn
In the Land of Time
The Relenting of Sardinac
The Fall of Babbulkund

II. Tales of Wonder

The Sword of Welleran
The Kith of the Elf-Folk
The Ghosts
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth
Blagdaross
Idle Days on the Yann
A Shop in Go-by Street
The Avenger of Perdónaris
The Bride of the Man-Horse

III. Prose Poems

Where the Tides Ebb and Flow
The Raft-Builders
The Prayer of the Flowers
The Workman
Charon
Carcassonne
Roses
The City

IV. Fantasy and Reality

The Wonderful Window
The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap
The City on Mallington Moor
The Bureau d'Echange de Maux
The Exile's Club
Thirteen at Table
The Last Dream of Bwona Khubla

V. Jorkens

The Tale of the Abu Laheeb
Our Distant Cousins
The Walk to Lingham
The Development of the Rillswood Estate
A Life's Work

VI. Some Late Tales

The Policeman's Prophecy
The Two Bottles of Relish
The Cut
Poseidon
Helping the Fairies
The Romance of His Life
The Pirate of the Round Pond

Explanatory Notes