Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany
Encyclopedia
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) was an Irish
Irish
Irish may refer to:*Irish cuisine* Ireland, an island in north-western Europe, on which are located:** Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom** Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state...

 writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

, published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.

Born to one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage
Peerage of Ireland
The Peerage of Ireland is the term used for those titles of nobility created by the English and later British monarchs of Ireland in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are Duke, Marquess, Earl,...

, Dunsany lived much of his life at perhaps Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

's longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara, worked with W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, was chess and pistol-shooting champion of Ireland, and travelled and hunted extensively. He died in Dublin after an attack of appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...

.

Biography

Edward Plunkett (Dunsany) was the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany
John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany
John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany , whose seat was Dunsany Castle, County Meath, Ireland, was the second son of Edward Plunkett, 16th Baron of Dunsany , and Lady Anne Constance Dutton .John William Plunkett received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Trinity College, Dublin...

 (1853–1899) and his wife, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle
Ernle
Ernle was the surname of an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the name of the place where their estates lay.-Onomastic:...

-Erle-Drax, née Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Burton (1855–1916).

From an historically wealthy and famous family, Dunsany was related to many other well-known Irish figures. He was a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett
Oliver Plunkett
Saint Oliver Plunkett was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland....

, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh. He was also related to the prominent Anglo-Irish unionist and later nationalist, Home Rule politician the Hon. Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett PC, KCVO, FRS, DL, JP (24 October 1854 – 26 March 1932) and Count George Noble Plunkett, Papal Count and Republican politician, father of Joseph Mary Plunkett, executed for his part in the 1916 Rising.

His mother was a cousin of Sir Richard Burton, and he inherited from her considerable height, being 6' 4". The Countess of Fingall, wife of Dunsany's cousin, the Earl of Fingall
Earl of Fingall
Baron Killeen and Earl of Fingall were titles in the Peerage of Ireland. Baron Fingall was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom...

, wrote a best-selling account of the life of the aristocracy in Ireland in the late 19th century and early 20th century, called Seventy Years Young.

Plunkett's only sibling, a younger brother, from whom he was later estranged, was the noted British naval officer, Admiral The Honourable Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax
Reginald Drax
Admiral The Hon. Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, KCB, DSO, JP, DL was a British admiral...

.

Early life

Edward Plunkett grew up at the family properties, most notably Dunstall Priory in Shoreham, Kent
Shoreham, Kent
Shoreham is a village and civil parish in the valley of the River Darent six miles north of Sevenoaks in Kent: it is in the District of Sevenoaks. The parish includes the settlements of Badgers Mount and Well Hill....

 and Dunsany Castle in County Meath
County Meath
County Meath is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Mide . Meath County Council is the local authority for the county...

 but also family homes such as in London. His schooling was at Cheam
Cheam School
Cheam School is a preparatory school in Headley in the civil parish of Ashford Hill with Headley in the English county of Hampshire. It was founded in 1645 by the Reverend George Aldrich in Cheam, Surrey and has been in operation ever since....

, Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and finally Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...

, which he entered in 1896.

The title passed to him at his father's death at a fairly young age, in 1899, and Dunsany returned to Dunsany Castle after war duty, in 1901.

In 1903, he met Lady Beatrice Child Villiers (1880–1970), youngest daughter of the 7th Earl of Jersey
Earl of Jersey
Earl of the Island of Jersey, usually shortened to Earl of Jersey, is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1697 for the statesman Edward Villiers, 1st Viscount Villiers, Ambassador to France from 1698 to 1699 and Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1699 to 1700...

 (head of the Jersey banking family), living at Osterley Park
Osterley Park
Osterley Park is a mansion set in a large park of the same name. It is in the London Borough of Hounslow, part of the western suburbs of London. When the house was built it was surrounded by rural countryside. It was one of a group of large houses close to London which served as country retreats...

, and they were married in 1904. Their only child, Randal, was born in 1906. Beatrice was supportive, and assisted Dunsany in his writing, typing his manuscripts, selecting work for his 1950s retrospective short story collection, and overseeing his literary heritage after his death.

The Dunsanys were socially active in both Dublin and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and travelled between their homes in Meath, London and Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, other than during World Wars I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and the Irish War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...

. Dunsany himself circulated with the literary figures of the time, to many of whom he was first introduced by his uncle, the co-operative pioneer Horace Plunkett, who also helped to manage his estate and investments for a time. He was friendly with, for example, George William Russell
George William Russell
George William Russell who wrote under the pseudonym Æ , was an Irish nationalist, writer, editor, critic, poet, and painter. He was also a mystical writer, and centre of a group of followers of theosophy in Dublin, for many years.-Organisor:Russell was born in Lurgan, County Armagh...

, Oliver St. John Gogarty
Oliver St. John Gogarty
Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty was an Irish poet, author, otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist, who served as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel Ulysses....

 and, for a time, W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...

.

Interests

Dunsany was a keen hunter (for many years hosting the hounds of a local hunt, as well as hunting in parts of Africa) and sportsman, and was at one time the pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...

-shooting champion of Ireland.

He enjoyed cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, provided the local cricket ground situated near Dunsany Crossroads, and later played for and presided at Shoreham Cricket Club.

Dunsany was a keen chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player, set chess puzzles for journals including The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

(of London), played Capablanca to a draw (in a simultaneous exhibition
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...

), and also invented Dunsany's chess
Dunsany's chess
Dunsany's chess, also known as Dunsany's game, is an asymmetric chess variant in which one side has standard chess pieces, and the other side has 32 pawns. Unlike many chess variants, this one does not feature any fairy pieces, which are pieces not found in conventional chess. This game was...

, an asymmetric chess variant
Chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from or inspired by chess. The difference from chess might include one or more of the following:...

 that is notable for not involving any fairy pieces, unlike many variants that require the player to learn unconventional piece movements. He was president of both the Irish Chess Union
Irish Chess Union
The Irish Chess Union , formed in 1912, is the governing body for chess in Ireland and a member of FIDE since 1933 and the European Chess Union. The ICU promotes Chess in the Republic of Ireland and maintains the chess rating for players in the Republic of Ireland, which are published three times a...

 and the Kent County Chess Association for some years, and of Sevenoaks Chess Club for 54 years.

Dunsany campaigned for animal rights, being known especially for his opposition to the "docking" of dogs' tails, and was president of the West Kent branch of the RSPCA
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a charity in England and Wales that promotes animal welfare. In 2009 the RSPCA investigated 141,280 cruelty complaints and collected and rescued 135,293 animals...

 in his later years.

He was a supporter of scouting
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....

 over many years, serving as President of the Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks is a commuter town situated on the London fringe of west Kent, England, some 20 miles south-east of Charing Cross, on one of the principal commuter rail lines from the capital...

 district Boy Scouts Association. He also supported the amateur drama group, the Shoreham Players.

Dunsany provided support for the British Legion in both Ireland and Kent, including grounds in Trim
Trim, County Meath
Trim is the traditional county town of County Meath in Ireland, although the county town is now Navan. The town was recorded in the 2006 census to have a population of 6,870....

 and poetry for the Irish branch's annual memorial service on a number of occasions.

Military experience

Dunsany served as a Second Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards
Coldstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....

 during the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...

 and as a Captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers was a Irish infantry regiment of the British Army formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 27th Regiment of Foot and the 108th Regiment of Foot...

 in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, when he was wounded. Having been refused forward positioning in 1916, being listed as valuable as a trainer, in the latter stages of the war he spent time in the trenches, and in the very last period wrote material for the War Office. Dunsany signed up for the local defence forces of both Ireland
Irish Army Reserve
The Army Reserve is the land component of the Reserve Defence Forces . It is the second line reserve of the Army. The Army Reserve is a part-time, fully voluntary organisation, and is one of two elements of the Reserve Defence Forces of Ireland, the other element being the Naval Service Reserve.It...

 and the United Kingdom
British Home Guard
The Home Guard was a defence organisation of the British Army during the Second World War...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and was especially active in Shoreham in Kent, the most-bombed village in the Battle of Britain.

Literary life

Dunsany's fame arose chiefly from his prolific writings, and he was involved with the Irish Literary Revival
Irish Literary Revival
The Irish Literary Revival was a flowering of Irish literary talent in the late 19th and early 20th century.-Forerunners:...

. Supporting the Revival, Dunsany was a major donor to the Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

, and he moved in Irish literary circles. He was well-acquainted with W. B. Yeats (who rarely acted as editor, but gathered and published a Dunsany selection), Lady Gregory, Percy French, "AE" Russell, Oliver St John Gogarty, Padraic Colum
Padraic Colum
Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Celtic Revival.-Early life:...

 (with whom he jointly wrote a play) and others. He befriended and supported Francis Ledwidge
Francis Ledwidge
Francis Edward Ledwidge was an Irish war poet from County Meath. Sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was killed in action at the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I.-Early life:...

 to whom he gave the use of his library.

Dunsany made his first literary tour to the USA in 1919, and made further such visits right up to the 1950s, notably to California. Dunsany's own work, and contribution to the Irish literary heritage, was recognised through an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

.

Later life

In the 1930s, Dunsany transferred his Meath estate to his son and heir under a trust, and settled in Shoreham, Kent
Shoreham, Kent
Shoreham is a village and civil parish in the valley of the River Darent six miles north of Sevenoaks in Kent: it is in the District of Sevenoaks. The parish includes the settlements of Badgers Mount and Well Hill....

, at his Kent property, not far from the home of Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, a friend, and visiting Ireland only occasionally thereafter.

In 1940, Dunsany was appointed Byron Professor of English in Athens University, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 but had to be evacuated due to wartime disruptions, returning home by a circuitous route, his travels forming a basis for a long poem published in book form. Olivia Manning
Olivia Manning
Olivia Mary Manning CBE was a British novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in England, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. She often wrote from her personal experience, though her books also...

's character, "Lord Pinkrose", in her novel sequence, the Fortunes of War, was a mocking portrait of Dunsany during this period.

Death

In 1957, Lord Dunsany took ill while eating with the Earl
Earl of Fingall
Baron Killeen and Earl of Fingall were titles in the Peerage of Ireland. Baron Fingall was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom...

 and Countess of Fingall, in what proved to be an attack of appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...

, and died in hospital in Dublin at the age of 79. He had directed that he be buried in the churchyard of the ancient church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Shoreham, Kent, in memory of shared war times. His funeral was attended by a wide range of family (including Pakenham, Jersey and Fingal) and Shoreham figures, and representatives of his old regiment and various bodies in which he had taken an interest. A memorial service was held at Kilmessan, Meath, with a reading of "Crossing the Bar" which was noted as coinciding with a passing flock of geese.

Lady Beatrice survived Lord Dunsany, living on primarily at Shoreham, overseeing his literary legacy until her death in 1970, while their son, Randal, succeeded him to the Barony, and was in turn succeeded by his grandson, to whom literary rights passed directly.

Writings

Dunsany was a prolific writer, penning short stories, novels, plays, poetry, essays and autobiography, and publishing over sixty books, not including individual plays. He began his authorial career in the late 1890s, with a few published verses, such as "Rhymes from a Suburb" and "The Spirit of the Bog", but he made a lasting impression in 1905 when he burst onto the publishing scene with the well-received collection The Gods of Pegāna
The Gods of Pegana
The Gods of Pegāna is the first book by Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, published on a commission basis in 1905. It is considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin...

.


Dunsany's most notable fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 short stories were published in collections from 1905 to 1919. He paid for the publication of the first such collection, The Gods of Pegāna, earning a commission on sales. This he never again had to do, the vast majority of his extensive writings selling.

The stories in his first two books, and perhaps the beginning of his third, were set within an invented world, Pegāna, with its own gods, history and geography. Starting with this book, Dunsany's name is linked to that of Sidney Sime
Sidney Sime
Sidney Sime was an English artist in the late Victorian and succeeding periods, mostly remembered for his fantastic and satirical artwork, especially his story illustrations for Irish author Lord Dunsany.-Early life:...

, his chosen artist, who illustrated much of his work, notably until 1922.

Dunsany's style varied significantly throughout his writing career. Prominent Dunsany scholar S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...

 has described these shifts as Dunsany moving on after he felt he had exhausted the potential of a style or medium. From the naïve fantasy of his earliest writings, through his early short story work in 1904–1908, he turned to the self-conscious fantasy of The Book of Wonder in 1912, in which he almost seems to be parodying his lofty early style.

Each of his collections varies in mood; A Dreamer's Tales
A Dreamer's Tales
A Dreamer's Tales is the fifth book by Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and others. It was first published in hardcover by George Allen & Sons in September, 1910, and has been reprinted a number of...

varies from the wistfulness of "Blagdaross" to the horrors of "Poor Old Bill" and "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" to the social satire of "The Day of the Poll."

The opening paragraph of "The Hoard of the Gibbelins
The Hoard of the Gibbelins
The Hoard of the Gibbelins is a fantasy short story by Lord Dunsany. It was first published in The Sketch in London and in The Book of Wonder in 1912. It was also reprinted in the anthology The Spell of Seven, edited by L...

" from The Book of Wonder, (1912) gives a good indication of both the tone and tenor of Dunsany's style at the time:
The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again.


After The Book of Wonder, Dunsany began to write plays — many of which were even more successful, at the time, than his early story collections — while also continuing to write short stories. He continued to write plays for the theatre into the 1930s, including the famous If, and a number for radio production.

Although many of Dunsany's stage plays were successfully produced within his lifetime, he also wrote a number of "chamber plays" which were only intended to be read privately (as if they were stories) or performed on the radio, rather than staged . Some of Dunsany's chamber or radio plays contain supernatural events — such as a character spontaneously appearing out of thin air, or vanishing in full view of the audience — without any explanation of how the effect is to be staged — a matter of no importance, since Dunsany did not intend these works actually to be performed live and visible.

Following a successful lecture touring in the USA in 1919–1920, and with his reputation now principally related to his plays, Dunsany temporarily reduced his output of short stories, concentrating on plays, novels, and poetry for a time.

His poetry, now little seen, was for a time so popular that it is recited by the lead character of F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

's This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University...

.

Dunsany's first novel, Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley, was published in 1922. It is set in "a Romantic Spain that never was," and follows the adventures of a young nobleman, Don Rodriguez, and his servant in their search for a castle for Rodriguez. It has been argued that Dunsany's inexperience with the novel form shows in the episodic nature of Don Rodriguez. In 1924, Dunsany published his second novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter, a return to his early style of writing, which is considered by many to be Dunsany's finest novel and a classic in the realm of the fantasy writing.

In his next novel, The Charwoman's Shadow, Dunsany returned to the Spanish milieu and to the light style of Don Rodriguez, to which it is related.

Though his style and medium shifted frequently, Dunsany's thematic concerns remained essentially the same. Many of Dunsany's later novels had an explicitly Irish theme, from the semi-autobiographical The Curse of the Wise Woman to His Fellow Men.

One of Dunsany's best-known characters was Joseph Jorkens
Joseph Jorkens
Joseph Jorkens, usually referred to simply as Jorkens, is the lead character in over 150 short stories written by the Irish author Lord Dunsany between 1925 and 1957...

, an obese middle-aged raconteur who frequented the fictional Billiards Club in London, and who would tell fantastic stories if someone would buy him a large whiskey and soda. From his tales, it was obvious that Mr Jorkens had travelled to all seven continents, was extremely resourceful, and well-versed in world cultures, but always came up short on becoming rich and famous. The Jorkens books, which sold well, were among the first of a type which was to become popular in fantasy and science fiction writing: extremely improbable "club tales" told at a gentleman's club or bar.

Dunsany's writing habits were considered peculiar by some. Lady Beatrice said that "He always sat on a crumpled old hat while composing his tales." (The hat was eventually stolen by a visitor to Dunsany Castle.) Dunsany almost never rewrote anything; everything he ever published was a first draft. Much of his work was penned with quill pens, which he made himself; Lady Beatrice was usually the first to see the writings, and would help type them. It has been said that Lord Dunsany would sometimes conceive stories while hunting, and would return to the Castle and draw in his family and servants to re-enact his visions before he set them on paper.

Dramatizations

  • Most of Dunsany's plays were performed during his lifetime, some of them many times in many locations, including the West End
    West End theatre
    West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

    , Broadway
    Broadway theatre
    Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

     and Off-Broadway
    Off-Broadway
    Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

    . At one time, five ran simultaneously in New York, possibly all on Broadway, while on another occasion, he was in performance in four European capitals plus New York.
  • Dunsany wrote several plays for radio production, most being broadcast on the BBC and some being collected in Plays for Earth and Air. The BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

     has records of the broadcasts, but according to articles on the author none of these recordings are extant.
  • The film Dean Spanley
    Dean Spanley
    Dean Spanley is a 2008 New Zealand and British comedy-drama film, with fantastic elements, from Miramax Films, Atlantic Film Group and General Film Corporation , directed by Fijian New Zealander Toa Fraser...

    , with a screenplay by Alan Sharp
    Alan Sharp
    Alan Sharp a novelist and screenwriter. He published two novels in the 1960s, and since then has written the screenplays for about twenty films, mostly produced in the United States....

     based on the short novel My Talks With Dean Spanley, directed by Toa Fraser
    Toa Fraser
    Toa Fraser, born in Britain in 1975, of a Fijian father and a British mother, is a playwright and film director. His second feature film, Dean Spanley, starring Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam and Peter O'Toole, premiered in September 2008.-Life:...

     and produced by Matthew Metcalfe and Alan Harris
    Alan Harris
    Alan Harris is a Welsh playwright. His play A Good Night Out in the Valleys launched the new National Theatre Wales in March 2010 and he has worked with theatre companies throughout the United Kingdom....

    , and starring 8-times Oscar nominee Peter O'Toole
    Peter O'Toole
    Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...

    , Sam Neill
    Sam Neill
    Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....

    , Jeremy Northam
    Jeremy Northam
    Jeremy Philip Northam is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Ivor Novello in the 2001 film Gosford Park, as Dean Martin in the 2002 television movie Martin and Lewis, and as Thomas More on the Showtime series The Tudors...

     and Bryan Brown
    Bryan Brown
    Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at...

    , completed post production mid-2008, and had a gala premiere in September 2008, with general release to follow. Filming began at Elm Hill (also used by Stardust), Holkham Hall, Peckover House (Cambridgeshire
    Cambridgeshire
    Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

    ), Elveden Hall (Suffolk
    Suffolk
    Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

    ) and the Cathedral Cloisters in Norwich
    Norwich
    Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

     in November and December 2007, and continued in New Zealand
    New Zealand
    New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

    . The film is funded by three investor companies plus two film promotion agencies, one from New Zealand and Screen East from England.
  • The film It Happened Tomorrow
    It Happened Tomorrow
    It Happened Tomorrow is a 1944 fantasy film starring Dick Powell, Linda Darnell and Jack Oakie, and featuring Edgar Kennedy and Sig Ruman. It was directed by René Clair.-Plot:...

    credited a Dunsany short story as one of its sources, and it was said that Sliding Doors
    Sliding Doors
    Sliding Doors is a 1998 British-American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Howitt and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah, and featured John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Virginia McKenna. The music was composed by David Hirschfelder...

    also had a Dunsanian link.
  • The Pledge, a 20 or 23 minute colour production from the short story "The Highwayman," directed by Digby Rumsey, released by Fantasy Films in 1981 and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, with music by Michael Nyman
    Michael Nyman
    Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...

    .
  • In The Twilight, a 15 minute colour production from the short story of the same name, directed by Digby Rumsey.
  • Nature and Time, a 1976 colour production from the short story of the same name, directed by Digby Rumsey and starring Helen York and Paul Goodchild.
  • Rumours have been reported about film or TV options around a number of other Dunsany works, from early stories to Jorkens to, notably, The King of Elfland's Daughter
    The King of Elfland's Daughter
    The King of Elfland's Daughter is a 1924 fantasy novel written by Lord Dunsany. Written before the genre was named, it is considered to be among the pioneering works of modern fantasy. Its importance was recognized in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the second volume of the...

    , which inspired the successful Stardust — but aside from the productions above, the only such option documented publicly was one by George Pal on Dunsany's The Last Revolution.
  • The author appeared on early television a number of times, notably on The Brains Trust
    The Brains Trust
    The Brains Trust was a popular informational BBC radio and later television programme in the United Kingdom during the 1940s and 50s.- History :...

    — no recordings are known to be extant.
  • Dunsany is recorded as having read short stories and poetry on air, and for private recording by Hazel Littlefield-Smith and friends in California, and it is believed that one or two of these recordings survive.
  • An LP recording of a number of Dunsany's short stories, read by Vincent Price
    Vincent Price
    Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...

     was published in the 1970s.
  • He appears as a playable character in the 1999 PlayStation
    PlayStation
    The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...

     game Koudelka
    Koudelka
    is a role-playing game developed by Sacnoth for the Sony PlayStation. The game was released on December 16, 1999, in Japan, June 29, 2000, in North America and September 29, 2000, in Europe.- Gameplay :...

    .
  • Two members of Steeleye Span
    Steeleye Span
    Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat"....

     recorded a concept album
    The King of Elfland's Daughter (album)
    The King of Elfland's Daughter is a concept album by former Steeleye Span members Bob Johnson and Peter Knight. It was based on the 1924 fantasy novel of the same name by Lord Dunsany and recorded and released in 1977...

     based on Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter
    The King of Elfland's Daughter
    The King of Elfland's Daughter is a 1924 fantasy novel written by Lord Dunsany. Written before the genre was named, it is considered to be among the pioneering works of modern fantasy. Its importance was recognized in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the second volume of the...

    in 1977, released by Chrysalis Records on LP and later on CD.
  • A number of Dunsany short stories have been published as audiobooks in Germany, and played on the German national railway, Deutsche Bahn
    Deutsche Bahn
    Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

     (DB).
  • The radio drama "Fortress of Doom" (2005) in the Radio Tales
    Radio Tales
    Radio Tales is an American series of radio dramas produced by Generations Productions. This series adapted classic works of American and world literature such as The War of the Worlds, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Beowulf, Gulliver's Travels, and the One Thousand and One Nights...

    series is an adaptation of Dunsany's short story "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth".

Memberships, awards and honours

Lord Dunsany was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

 and of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...

, and an honorary member of the Institut Historique et Heraldique de France.

Lord Dunsany played left half back for the 1938 championship winning team for Drumree.

Dunsany was initially an Associate Member of the Irish Academy of Letters, founded by Yeats and others, and later a full member. At one of their banquets, he asked Sean O'Faolain, who was presiding, "Do we not toast the King?" O'Faolain replied that there was only one toast: to the Nation; but after it was given and he'd called for coffee, Dunsany stood quietly among the bustle, raised his glass discreetly, and whispered "God bless him."

The Curse of the Wise Woman received the Hammerworth Prize in Ireland.

Dunsany also received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin.

Influences

  • Dunsany studied Greek and Latin, particularly Greek drama and Herodotus
    Herodotus
    Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

    , the "Father of History". Dunsany wrote in a letter: "When I learned Greek at Cheam and heard of other gods a great pity came on me for those beautiful marble people that had become forsaken and this mood has never quite left me."1
  • The King James Bible
    King James Version of the Bible
    The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...

    . In a letter to Frank Harris
    Frank Harris
    Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...

    , Dunsany wrote: "When I went to Cheam School I was given a lot of the Bible to read. This turned my thoughts eastward. For years no style seemed to me natural but that of the Bible and I feared that I never would become a writer when I saw that other people did not use it."
  • The wide-ranging collection in the Library of Dunsany Castle, dating back centuries and comprising many classic works, from early encyclopedias through parliamentary records, Greek and Latin works and Victorian illustrated books
  • The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm
    Brothers Grimm
    The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

     and Hans Christian Andersen
    Hans Christian Andersen
    Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...

    .
  • The work of Edgar Allan Poe
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

    .
  • Irish
    Hiberno-English
    Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...

     speech patterns
  • The Darling of the Gods, a stage play written by David Belasco
    David Belasco
    David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...

     and John Luther Long
    John Luther Long
    John Luther Long was an American lawyer and writer best known for his short story "Madame Butterfly", which was based on the recollections of his sister, Jennie Correll, who had been to Japan with her husband—a Methodist missionary.Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Long had been admitted to the bar...

    , first performed 1902–1903. The play presents a fantastical, imaginary version of Japan
    Japan
    Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

     that powerfully affected Dunsany and may be a key template for his own imaginary kingdoms.
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne
    Algernon Charles Swinburne
    Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

    , who wrote the line "Time and the Gods are at strife" in his 1866 poem "Hymn to Proserpine
    Hymn to Proserpine
    "Hymn to Proserpine" is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, published in 1866. The poem is addressed to the goddess Proserpina, the Roman equivalent of Persephone....

    ". Dunsany later realized this was his unconscious influence for the title Time and the Gods.
  • The heroic romances of William Morris
    William Morris
    William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

    ,set in imaginary lands of the author's creation, such as The Well at the World's End
    The Well at the World's End
    The Well at the World's End is a fantasy novel by the British artist, poet, and author William Morris. It was first published in 1896 and has been reprinted a number of times since, most notably in two parts as the twentieth and twenty-first volumes of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in August...

    .
  • Dunsany's 1922 novel Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley seems to draw openly from Cervantes
    Miguel de Cervantes
    Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...

    ' Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615).
  • Dunsany named his play The Seventh Symphony (collected in Plays for Earth and Air [1937]) after Beethoven's 7th Symphony, which was one of Dunsany's favourite works of music. One of the last Jorkens stories returns to this theme, referring to Beethoven's Tenth Symphony.

Writers associated with Dunsany

  • Francis Ledwidge
    Francis Ledwidge
    Francis Edward Ledwidge was an Irish war poet from County Meath. Sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was killed in action at the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I.-Early life:...

    , who wrote to Dunsany in 1912 asking for help with getting his poetry published. After a delay due to a hunting trip in Africa, Dunsany invited the poet to his home, and they met and corresponded regularly thereafter, and Dunsany was so impressed that he helped with publication, and with introductions to literary society. The two became friendly and Dunsany, trying to discourage Ledwidge from joining the army when World War I broke, offered financial support. Ledwidge, however, did sign-up, and found himself for a time in the same unit as Dunsany, who helped with publication of his first collection, Songs of the Fields, which was received with critical success upon its release in 1915. Throughout the war years, Ledwidge kept in contact with Dunsany, sending him poems. Ledwidge was killed at the Battle of Passchendaele two years later, even as his second collection of poetry, also selected by Dunsany, circulated. Dunsany subsequently arranged for the publication of a third collection, and later a first Collected Edition.

  • Mary Lavin
    Mary Lavin
    Mary Josephine Lavin was a noted Irish short story writer and novelist. She is regarded as a pioneering female author in the traditionally male-dominated world of Irish letters. Her subject matter often dealt explicitly with feminist issues and concerns at a time when the primacy of the Roman...

    , who received support and encouragement from Dunsany over many years

  • William Butler Yeats
    William Butler Yeats
    William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...

    , who, though he rarely acted as an editor, selected and edited a collection of Dunsany's work, in 1912

  • Lady Wentworth, poet, writing in a classical style, received support from Dunsany

Writers influenced by Dunsany

  • H. P. Lovecraft
    H. P. Lovecraft
    Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

     was greatly impressed by Dunsany after seeing him on a speaking tour of the United States, and Lovecraft's "Dream Cycle
    Dream Cycle
    The Dream Cycle refers to a series of stories by author H. P. Lovecraft. These stories concern themselves with "The Dreamlands": a vast, alternate dimension that can be entered via dreams.-Geography:The Dreamlands is apparently divided into four regions:...

    " stories, his dark pseudo-history of how the universe came to be, and his god Azathoth
    Azathoth
    Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. Its epithets include Nuclear Chaos, the Daemon Sultan and the Blind Idiot God.-Inspiration:...

     all clearly show Dunsany's influence. Lovecraft once wrote, "There are my 'Poe
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

    ' pieces and my 'Dunsany' pieces—but alas—where are my Lovecraft pieces?"

  • Robert E. Howard
    Robert E. Howard
    Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....

     included Dunsany in a list of his favourite writers in a 1932 letter to Lovecraft.

  • Clark Ashton Smith
    Clark Ashton Smith
    Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...

     was familiar with Dunsany's work,and it had some influence on his own fantasy stories.

  • J.R.R.Tolkien, according to John D. Rateliff
    John D. Rateliff
    John D. Rateliff is a published scholar of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He acquired his Ph.D. at Marquette University, where he researched Tolkien's works. His most recent publication is The History of The Hobbit.-Career:...

    's report, presented Clyde S. Kilby
    Clyde S. Kilby
    Clyde Samuel Kilby was an American author and English professor, best known for his scholarship on the Inklings, especially J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. A professor at Wheaton College for most of his life, Dr. Kilby founded the Marion E...

     with a copy of The Book of Wonder as kind of a preparation to his auxiliary role in The Silmarillion
    The Silmarillion
    The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...

    's compilation and development during the Sixties.Tolkien's letters and divulged notes made allusions to two of the stories found in this volume, Chu-Bu and Sheemish
    Chu-Bu and Sheemish
    Chu-Bu and Sheemish are characters in a short story of the same name by Lord Dunsany. The tale was first published in The Book of Wonder . Chu-Bu is the accustomed resident in a temple where he is worshiped...

     and The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller Dale J. Nelson has argued persuasively in Tolkien studies 01 that Tolkien may have been inspired by another of the Book of Wonder's tales, The Hoard of the Gibbelins
    The Hoard of the Gibbelins
    The Hoard of the Gibbelins is a fantasy short story by Lord Dunsany. It was first published in The Sketch in London and in The Book of Wonder in 1912. It was also reprinted in the anthology The Spell of Seven, edited by L...

    , while writing one of his poems, The Mewlips
    The Mewlips
    The Mewlips is a hobbit poem, appearing in the work The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien. It concerns the Mewlips, an imaginary race of evil creatures that feed on passers by, collecting their bones in a sack...

    , included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
    The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
    The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is a collection of poetry written by J. R. R. Tolkien and published in 1962. The book contains 16 poems, only two of which deal with Tom Bombadil, a character who is most famous for his encounter with Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring...

    .
  • Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro
    Guillermo del Toro
    Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...

     has cited Dunsany as an influence.

  • Neil Gaiman
    Neil Gaiman
    Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

     has expressed admiration for Dunsany and has written an introduction to a collection of his stories. Some commentators have posited links between The King of Elfland's Daughter
    The King of Elfland's Daughter
    The King of Elfland's Daughter is a 1924 fantasy novel written by Lord Dunsany. Written before the genre was named, it is considered to be among the pioneering works of modern fantasy. Its importance was recognized in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the second volume of the...

    and Gaiman's Stardust (book
    Stardust (novel)
    Stardust is the first solo prose novel by Neil Gaiman. It is usually published as a novel with illustrations by Charles Vess. Stardust has a different tone and style from most of Gaiman's prose fiction, being consciously written in the tradition of pre-Tolkien English fantasy, following in the...

     and film), a connection seemingly supported by a comment of Gaiman's quoted in The Neil Gaiman Reader.

  • Jorge Luis Borges
    Jorge Luis Borges
    Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

     included Dunsany's short story "Idle Days on the Yann" as the twenty-seventh title in The Library of Babel, a series of works Borges selected and provided forewords for (not to be confused with his short story of the same name, "The Library of Babel
    The Library of Babel
    "The Library of Babel" is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges , conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format....

    "). Borges also, in his essay "Kafka and His Precursors," included Dunsany's story "Carcassonne" as one of the texts that presaged, or paralleled, Kafka's themes.

  • Talbot Mundy
    Talbot Mundy
    Talbot Mundy was an English writer. He also wrote under the pseudonym Walter Galt.-Life and work:...

     greatly admired Dunsany's "plays and fantasy", according to Mundy biographer Brian Taves.

  • C. M. Kornbluth
    Cyril M. Kornbluth
    Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a notable member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner and Jordan Park...

     was an avid reader of Dunsany as a young man, and mentions Dunsany in his short fantasy story "Mr. Packer Goes to Hell" (1941).

  • Arthur C. Clarke
    Arthur C. Clarke
    Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

     enjoyed Dunsany's work and corresponded with him between 1944 and 1956. Those letters are collected in the book Arthur C. Clarke & Lord Dunsany: A Correspondence. Clarke also edited and allowed the use of an early essay as an introduction to one volume of The Collected Jorkens and that essay acknowledges the link between Jorkens and Tales from the White Hart
    Tales from the White Hart
    Tales from the White Hart is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in the "club tales" style.Thirteen of the fifteen stories originally appeared across a number of different publications. "Moving Spirit" and "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" were first...

    .

  • Margaret St. Clair
    Margaret St. Clair
    Margaret St. Clair was an American science fiction writer, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Idris Seabright and Wilton Hazzard....

     was an admirer of Dunsany's work, and her story "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" (1951) is a sequel to Dunsany's "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles".

  • Evangeline Walton
    Evangeline Walton
    Evangeline Walton was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American author of fantasy fiction. She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”. Evangeline Walton (24 November 1907...

     stated in an interview that Dunsany inspired her to write fantasy.

  • Jack Vance
    Jack Vance
    John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...

     was a keen reader of Dunsany's work as a child.

  • Michael Moorcock
    Michael Moorcock
    Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....

     often cites Dunsany as a strong influence.

  • Peter S. Beagle
    Peter S. Beagle
    Peter Soyer Beagle is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. His most notable works include the novels The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place and Tamsin, and the award-winning story "Two Hearts".-Career:Beagle won early recognition from The Scholastic Art &...

     also cites Dunsany as an influence, and wrote an introduction for one of the recent reprint editions.

  • David Eddings
    David Eddings
    David Eddings was an American author who wrote several best-selling series of epic fantasy novels.-Biography:...

     once named Lord Dunsany as his personal favourite fantasy writer, and recommended aspiring authors to sample him.

  • Gene Wolfe
    Gene Wolfe
    Gene Wolfe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying into the religion. He is a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the...

     used one of Dunsany's poems to open his bestselling 2004 work The Knight.

  • Fletcher Pratt
    Fletcher Pratt
    Murray Fletcher Pratt was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and history, particularly noted for his works on naval history and on the American Civil War.- Life and work :...

    's 1948 novel The Well of the Unicorn
    The Well of the Unicorn
    The Well of the Unicorn is a fantasy novel by Fletcher Pratt, the first of his two major fantasies. It was first published in hardcover by William Sloane Associates in 1948, under the pseudonym George U. Fletcher...

    was written as a sequel to Dunsany's play King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior
    Five Plays
    Five Plays is the eighth book by Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and others...

    .

  • Ursula K. Le Guin
    Ursula K. Le Guin
    Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

    , in her essay on style in fantasy "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", wryly referred to Lord Dunsany as the "First Terrible Fate that Awaiteth Unwary Beginners in Fantasy", alluding to the (at the time) very common practice of young writers attempting to write in Lord Dunsany's style.

  • Welleran Poltarnees
    Welleran Poltarnees
    Welleran Poltarnees is the pen name of Harold Darling, an author who is best known for having written numerous "blessing books" that employ turn-of-the-century artwork...

    , an author of numerous non-fantasy "blessing books" employing turn-of-the-century artwork, is a pen name based on two of Lord Dunsany's most famous stories.

  • Gary Myers
    Gary Myers (writer)
    Gary Myers is an American writer of fantasy and horror. He is a resident of Fullerton, California. His first book, The House of the Worm, was a collection of Cthulhu Mythos stories in the fantasy manner of H. P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany; it was published by Arkham House in 1975 and is now out...

    's 1975 short story collection The House of the Worm
    The House of the Worm
    The House of the Worm is a collection of stories by author Gary Myers. It was published in 1975 by Arkham House in an edition of 4,144 copies and was the author's first book. The book is a stylistic pastiche of H. P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany, and may be seen as an expansion of Lovecraft's Dream...

    is a double pastiche of Dunsany and Lovecraft.

Scholars and archivists

S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...

 and Darrell Schweitzer
Darrell Schweitzer
Darrell Charles Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy...

 were early workers on the Dunsany oeuvre, gathering stories and essays and reference material, and producing both an initial bibliography (together) and scholarly studies of Dunsany's work (separate works). Both are well-known figures in the fields of speculative fiction. In recent years, a PhD researcher, Tania Scott, from Glasgow University, has been working on Dunsany for some time, and has spoken at literary and other conventions.

In the late 1990s a curator, J.W. Doyle, was appointed at Dunsany Castle, locating and organising the author's manuscripts, typescripts and other materials. He discovered both known (but "lost") works, such as the plays "The Ginger Cat" and "The Murderers," some Jorkens stories and the novel The Pleasures of a Futuroscope (subsequently published by Hippocampus Press
Hippocampus Press
Hippocampus Press is an American publisher of fantasy, horror and science fiction, and specializes in reprints or first editions of work by authors such as H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. One of its major projects is the 5-volume set of Lovecraft's Collected Essays...

) and unknown, unpublished works, notably including The Last Book of Jorkens
The Last Book of Jorkens
The Last Book of Jorkens is a collection of fantasy short stories around the character Joseph Jorkens by author Lord Dunsany. First prepared for publication in early 1957, it was left unpublished on Dunsany's death later that year, and was finally issued in a limited first special edition only in...

, to the first edition of which he wrote an introduction, and an unnamed 1956 short story collection, not yet published.

External links

  • Lord Dunsany: the author's page in the official family site
  • e-texts of works by Lord Dunsany
  • Dunsany Bibliography, including cover images and summaries
  • Review of Lord Dunsany's short stories by Jo Walton
    Jo Walton
    Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award for her novel Tooth and Claw in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award...

  • The Book of Wonder LibriVox recording
  • Edward Winter
    Edward Winter (chess historian)
    Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...

    , Lord Dunsany and Chess (2006)
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