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Lord Dunsany



One of the First Crowned Princes of High Fantasy


(right image credit: Sydney Sime via)

Wiki entry, ISFDB entry

One of the most intriguing and exciting examples of early high fantasy are the magical (and mythical in a true Tolkien style) tales of Lord Dunsany, or Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany - who quite appropriately lived all his life in an ancient castle, looming in the mist:


(Lady Dunsany, Beatrice Child Villiers - and the Dunsany Castle, via)


Speaking of Tolkien, the wealth of Dunsany's work (more than a hundred tales) served as an inspiration for Middle Earth, and not vice versa. The world of Lord Dunsany Tales is wildly fantastic, inherently beautiful, painted in broad strokes, perhaps too sketchily realized (due to the immensity of the canvas) but nevertheless a fully enchanting and addicting environment - which, once tasted, cannot be forgotten.


(illustrations by Sydney Sime via)


You can read some of the Lord Dunsany's stories for free at the Internet Archive, for example, the Book of Wonder. Illustrations by Sydney Simes are a perfect fit for the wildly fantastic fantasy world of Lord Dunsany - they are indeed epic in the best sense of this word:



--------------------------

"The Bride of the Man-Horse"
© 1919, original
The Phoenix Tree, ed. R. Boyer, 1974

--/ cool high f story
--/ wonder award
--/ rare find

"The Fortress Unvanquishable Save For Sacnoth"
© The Sword Of Welleran, 1908
--/ fourth place f story
--/ wonder award
--/ awesome scale

--------------------------

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