Adventures in Unhistory: Conjectures on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends - Hardcover

Davidson, Avram

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 076530760X ISBN 13: 9780765307606

Publisher: Tor Books, 2006

Synopsis

* Where did Sinbad Sail?
* Who Fired the Phoenix?
* The Boy Who Cried Werewolf
* The Great Rough Beast
* Postscript on Prester John
* The Secret of Hyperborea
* What Gave All Those Mammoths Cold Feet?
 
And many more--fictional? authoritative? fantastic? deadpan?--investigations into the real, the true...and the things that should be true
 
PREFACE BY PETER S. BEAGLE
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE BARR
 
"Although the wombat is real and the dragon is not, nobody knows what a wombat looks like and everyone knows what a dragon looks like."
 
Not a novel, not a book of short stories, Adventures in Unhistory is a book of the fantastic--a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and--revealed at last--the Secret of Hyperborea.
 
The facts are here, the foundations behind rumors, legends, and the imaginations of generations of tale-spinners. But far from being dry recitals, these meditations, or lectures, or deadpan prose performances are as lively, as crazily inventive, as witty as the best fiction of the author, a writer praised by Gardner Dozois as "one of the great short story writers of our times."
 
Who, on the subject of Dragons, could write coldly, dispassionately, guided only by logic?  Certainly not Avram Davidson. Certain facts, these facts, deserve more than recitation; they deserve flourish, verve, gusto, style--the late, great Avram Davidson's unique voice.  That prose which, in the words of Peter S. Beagle's Preface to this volume, "cries out to be read aloud."

About this title

About the Author

Avram Davidson was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1923. After spending some time at New York University, he served in the Marines from 1942 till 1946--and again saw action during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. For two years in the early 1960s, Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He earned awards and accolades throughout his life for his SF writing, including the Hugo Award, the Edgar Award, the Ellery Queen Award, and three World Fantasy Awards. Davidson died in 1993.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—This collection of short essays is a real treasure. Davidson explains the origins of 15 myths, including werewolves, dragons, mermaids, unicorns, where Sinbad actually sailed, and the phoenix. He agrees with Kipling, whom he quotes as noting: "There are nine and sixty ways/Of constructing tribal lays/And every single one of them is right!" Kipling is just one of the many authors, historians, and philosophers to whom the well-read and eclectic Davidson turns to support the suppositions he himself posits about the "true" origins of each myth. He sometimes pits classic explainers against one another, as in the essay explaining the root of lycanthropy: one could find it in "Bulfinch's Mythology, but Rabelais is more fun." Each aside and every digression offer another path to follow or connection to make. The author's narrative prose itself invites sharing aloud, serving as a great model for student writers. Not only is this a wonderful resource for information on myths and legends, but it also comes with the bonuses of real literary adventures and some of the most entertaining nonfiction writing in the realm of popular culture.—Dana Cobern-Kullman, Luther Burbank Middle School, Burbank, CA
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Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 076530760X
• ISBN 13: 9780765307606
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320