A Dreamer's Tale (Paperback or Softback)

A Dreamer’s Tales (1910) is a short story collection by Lord Dunsany. Published at the height of his career, A Dreamer’s Tales would influence such writers as J. R. R. Tolkein, Ursula K. Le Guin, and H. P. Lovecraft. Recognized as a pioneering author of fantasy and science fiction, Dunsany is a man whose work, in the words of Lovecraft, remains “unexcelled in the sorcery of crystalline singing prose, and supreme in the creation of a gorgeous and languorous world of incandescently exotic vision.” “Like a great wall is the mountain to the west. It comes up out of the distance and goes down into the distance again, and it is named Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean.” A Dreamer’s Tales, Dunsany’s fourth collection of stories, contains some of his finest tales of fantasy and adventure. The distant mountain of Poltarnees has long been a place of wonder for mankind. The stories of old tell of many a traveler who set out to see what lay beyond its insurmountable peak. In these same stories, no one has ever returned. Promised the hand of the Princess of Arizim, one man hopes that love will give him the power not only to reach the mountaintop, but to return alive. In “Idle Days on the Yann,” a story praised by Yeats and Lovecraft alike, a man sails down the River Yann in order to reach its fabled gate. Along the way, he observes cities of unspeakable strangeness and beauty. Dunsany’s tales of high fantasy continue to delight over a century after they first appeared in print. This edition of Lord Dunsany’s A Dreamer’s Tales is a classic of Irish fantasy fiction reimagined for modern readers.

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Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) was a British writer. Born in London, Dunsany―whose name was Edward Plunkett―was raised in a prominent Anglo-Irish family alongside a younger brother. When his father died in 1899, he received the title of Lord Dunsany and moved to Dunsany Castle in 1901. He met Lady Beatrice Child Villiers two years later, and they married in 1904. They were central figures in the social spheres of Dublin and London, donating generously to the Abbey Theatre while forging friendships with W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and George William Russell. In 1905, he published The Gods of Pegāna, a collection of fantasy stories, launching his career as a leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival. Subsequent collections, such as A Dreamer’s Tales (1910) and The Book of Wonder (1912), would influence generations of writers, including J. R. R. Tolkein, Ursula K. Le Guin, and H. P. Lovecraft. In addition to his pioneering work in the fantasy and science fiction genres, Dunsany was a successful dramatist and poet. His works have been staged and adapted for theatre, radio, television, and cinema, and he was unsuccessfully nominated for the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature.