Lord Dunsanys Early Collections, Lord Dunsany
Lord Dunsanys Early Collections, Lord Dunsany
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Lord Dunsany's Early Collections
Includes 12 pieces by Lord Dunsany from The Gods of Pegana, The Sword of Welleran and Time and the Gods to Nowadays, Tales of War and Unhappy Far-Off Things

Author: Lord Dunsany

Narrator: Charles Featherstone

Unabridged: 34 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/30/2022


Synopsis

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett was born into a very unusual situation in 1878. He was the eldest scion of a family that had lived in the oldest castle in Ireland since its construction in 1180 CE, he became the 18th Baron Dunsany in 1899 at the age of 21, when his father passed away. He was a soldier, lord, military trainer, propaganda writer, activist, and invented Dunsany’s Chess, in which one player has four ranks of pawns and no other pieces.He published mostly first drafts, writing short stories, fantasy novels, plays, and poems, with over 90 publications in his lifetime. A horseman, hunter and pistol champion whose family and friends were deeply involved in what came to be known as The Troubles. A man court martialled for supporting the Irish War of Independence, who raised toasts to the King in years to come, and worked with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory.Mostly famed in the modern Era for The King of Elfland’s Daughter, his career before and after that point were dissimilar, and he took on very different creative and personal aspects over the decades.The artist Sydney Syme illustrated his work until 1922, and his visions of these fantasy realms started a lasting genre and style all their own. Syme’s work was the direct inspiration for at least three Dunsany stories, and the artist is mentioned in two tales by HP Lovecraft (Pickman's Model and The Call of Cthulhu)In his own time, his plays and poems were much more popular than the early fantasy and non-fiction collected in this volume.
Includes:The Gods of PeganaThe Sword of WelleranTime and the GodsA Dreamer's TaleThe Book of WonderSelections from the Writings of Lord DunsanyFifty One TalesTales of WonderTales of Three HemispheresNowadaysTales of WarUnhappy Far-Off Things

Author Bio

Lord 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, The Book of Wonder, and The Last Book of Wonder. Dunsany also distinguished himself as a dramatist, and his early plays-collected in Five Plays and Plays of Gods and Men-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 and The Blessing of Pan. He also wrote many tales of the loquacious clubman Joseph Jorkens, eventually collected in five volumes. His later plays include If, Plays of Near and Far, Seven Modern Comedies, and Plays for Earth and Air. By the 1930s, encouraged by W. B. Yeats and others to write about his native Ireland, he produced The Curse of the Wise Woman, The Story of Mona Sheehy, and other novels. His later tales were gathered in The Man Who Ate the Phoenix and The Little Tales of Smethers, 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.

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