A Dreamer's Tales

by Lord Dunsany

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Anthologies, Literature

82 pages, Paperback

First published April 13, 1910

About the author

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, eighteenth baron of Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work in fantasy published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes hundreds of short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays. Born to one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage, he lived much of his life at perhaps Ireland's longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara, received an honourary doctorate from Trinity College, and died in Dublin.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a time, lost in the mists of antiquity, when the dreamer could wander his fantasy land at will and set down his/her experiences on paper at leisure, without worrying about deadlines and contracts: when he/she could pen his words without worrying whether his book will hit the bestseller charts or not: when writing was pure pleasure. Lord Dunsany was a product of those times.

A Dreamer's Tales is exactly that: a bunch of stories, fables and legends (and some pieces which defy any kind of description), varying in quality and length, bunched together in this slim volume. They share only one quality-the gossamer structure of dreams, captured in the early morning before they melt away totally in the harsh light of the day.

It is said that dreams last only seconds, and their apparent length is an illusion. Our mind supplies the sequence and pace for a distorted jumble of images which tumble helter-skelter into the brain during the period of sleep called Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. However scientifically interesting that may be, subjectively we only know that we inhabit a totally different country when we dream: where aeons may pass, and light-years may pass rapidly beneath our dreaming selves as we fly over fantastic galaxies populated by exotic beings.

One of the stories, Where the Tides Ebb and Flow, is about such a dream where the dreamer dies and watches the city over passing centuries as a dead man. It has got one of the most fantastic opening lines that I have ever read ("I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me"). Dunsany does this again and again, using the technique of the storytellers of yore, jumping right into the middle of a tale, engaging the listener and the teller with an easy intimacy. It is one of his main strengths as a writer.

There are tales of doomed cities here, where the place is the protagonist (The Madness of Andelsprutz, Bethmoora); of sea voyagers who visit fantastic places en route in true fairytale fashion (Idle Days on the Yann); and of forlorn quests doomed to failure (Carcassone). The first story, Poltarnees, Beholder of the Ocean, is a true fairy tale. There is more than a hint of menace in many of these dreams which take them to nightmare territory (Poor Old Bill, for example). There is also humour (The Sword and the Idol, The Day of the Poll).

The concluding piece, The Unhappy Body, can be taken as a sort of manifesto for Dunsany: the reason why he (or any writer, for that matter) writes these stories - the soul which will not let the body rest, until it is laid in the grave.

These stories may be too light for today's tastes, when fantasy has become a full-blown field with its own sets of rules and conventions. However, I found them refreshing and enjoyable. Because who does not enjoy a dream, (even "delicious nightmare", to quote Hitchcock), all the more so because one knows one can wake up from it any time? In Dunsany's own words:

"But I arose and opened the window wide, and, stretching my hands out over the little garden, I blessed the birds whose song had woken me up from the troubled and terrible centuries of my dream."

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 – 3 stars

So, this took me forever to read. As I’ve said elsewhere I appreciate Dunsany’s importance to the field of fantasy literature, and he certainly has a poetic way with words, but so many of his stories seem like little more than sketches, or rapidly painted pictures done in very broad strokes, that I usually don’t find myself left with too much to really hold onto either in the realm of plot or character. One could easily argue that’s not Dunsany’s point and I would happily concede that…it just means I sometimes find it a bit laborious to work through a whole collection of his work.

The ‘theme’ of this collection, as the title indicates, is the realm of dream and its near-neighbour romance (or fantasy) and how they impact our lives. I found myself constantly thinking of Neil Gaiman as I read these stories and feeling “oh yeah, I could see that as a one-issue story in ‘The Sandman’”and I wonder how big of an influence Dunsany was on his work…very great I would assume. All in all there’s a lot of melancholy in these tales as Dunsany concentrates on not only the importance of dream/fantasy to our lives, but also its ephemerality. He also seems almost morbidly pre-occupied with looking back at the glory days, or trying to capture that moment of no return when the golden age of the past teeters into the banality of the present.

“Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean”: A very lyrical tale, like all of Dunsany’s works, and one that, in its themes at least, heavily reminded me of Tolkien…something I definitely didn’t expect to find given the vast differences between them and their work. It is ultimately a tale of longing and mystery and the need for there to always be a horizon beyond the sunset. In it Dunsany sets up a tiny secondary world made up of “the lands whose sentinels upon their borders do not behold the sea”. The great mystery that the sea comes to represent for these people holds such an iconic place that it becomes a god they worship whose powers and expanse are bywords, but whose ways and even appearance are mysterious and utterly unknown to them. For the most part these small, happy kingdoms are content to live their lives of peace and comfort and in their kindly inwardness they reminded me much of Tolkien’s Shire for they are truly an insulated and protected realm that has

…no enemy but age, for thirst and fever lie sunning themselves out in the mid-desert, and never prowl into the Inner Lands. And the ghouls and ghosts, whose highway is the night, are kept in the south by the boundary of magic…and all men are known to one another therein, and bless one another by name as they meet in the streets.

Indeed the only apparent discontent to be found is that which sometimes surfaces in the hearts and minds of certain young men who hunger for more than their circumscribed world can give them and they begin to heed the longing for the unknown sea. The sea-longing is a theme often used by Tolkien, esp. in _The Silmarillion_ where it is a malady that commonly inflicts the Elves and leads them to long for the Undying Lands far beyond the shores of Middle Earth. Likewise in Dunsany’s tales those youths that heed the sea’s siren song and pass over the sentinel mountains of the Inner Lands are never heard from again. And thus the sea maintains its mystery and its power. The three kings of the Inner Lands decide that they must learn this mystery of the sea and devise a plan: one of them has the fairest daughter ever to have been born to mortals and this, surely, will prove to be a lure that even the mighty sea’s call cannot break. They will promise the hand of this princess to the man who will go beyond the mountains to the sea and return to them with its mystery, for surely no one could abandon so beautiful a wife. It remains to be seen whose call is more powerful and to what promise the hero will be faithful.

“Blagdaross”: A fanciful fable in which the cast-off items in a village rubbish heap each relate their history and powers ultimately ending with their inevitable defeats. Those things which served only a practical purpose prove to be the most ephemeral, regardless of their undisputed utility, and the seemingly most useless of them becomes imbued with new purpose through the power of imagination.

"The Madness of Andelsprutz": As noted above many of Dunsany’s tales have features that heavily remind me of Neil Gaiman…or I suppose I should more correctly say that Gaiman is obviously heavily inspired by Dunsany…and this is one tale that I could easily see having been written by the latter author, perhaps in a modified form as a one-off in the Sandman series. It involves the psychology of cities, their souls, and the distinctive characteristics that they display and also can lose. As is usual with Dunsany it is a tale of loss and the passing away of an age.

“Where the Tides Ebb and Flow”: Dream is usually the gateway to the realms of the fantastic for Dunsany, but this is rarely a trip without at least a hint of peril. In this case the trip is one of unalloyed terror as the narrator experiences a lonely eternity in hell for an unspecified crime as he is sunk amidst the muck and mire of the Thames after death. He awakens in relief to find himself back in his old life. I found the tale more tiresome than terrifying.

“Bethmoora”: Another elegiac and melancholy tale from Dunsany. As is often the case for him the contemporary world of London is combined with the fantastical and given the set-up we are not quite sure whether this is real or simply a dream being experienced by the narrator. In short: a happy city on the edge of the desert is mysteriously abandoned and left to slowly decay into the waste. The narrator recalls the city fondly in the same breath as he describes the semi-dreaming state of both the place and people of London and we are left to wonder not only at the mystery of Bethmoora’s fall, but the concrete reality of the narrator’s entire account. I could see this as a one-off issue in Gaiman’s old Sandman series as well.

“Idle Days on the Yann”: a sort of travelogue of through the land of dream as a man makes a voyage upon the mythical river Yann and observes the many strange places, peoples, and customs that gather upon its legendary borders. As is the case with most of Dunsany’s stories, in my not-so-humble opinion anyway, there’s not a lot of plot or character to grab onto, but lots of sumptuous prose that often makes up for it such as this description of a mountain river falling to the sea:

Louder and louder came the Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing down from the fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists, and wreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked up near the mountain's summit from some celestial garden of the Sun.

“The Sword and the Idol”: Something of an allegory of the prehistoric battle between the sword as emblematic of all weapons and religion as personified in idols, both of which are the fruits of man’s ingenuity and lend power to those who control them.

“The Idle City”: A far away city charges stories as an entry tax and the reader is given a sampling of some of them. I wasn’t really blown away by any of them and they seemed mostly like fantastical fluff to me.

“The Hashish Man”: A fun bit of meta play from Dunsany as he tells us a tale from the POV of the titular ‘hashish man’, apparently someone Dunsany meets at a dinner party who takes it upon himself to fill in the blanks for some of the questions the author left open in his previous tale “Bethmoora”. It turns out that since sampling hashish allows the man to travel in the realms of imagination he has actually been to Bethmoora thank-you-very-much and he enlightens Dunsany on who exactly was behind the fall of that fabled city…right before jumping out a window when the police show up. A weird but kinda neat tale.

“Poor Old Bill”: A slightly macabre tale about an old sailor who tells a tale about ‘poor old Bill’ and his trials dealing with a captain who has a knack for cursing his men.

“The Beggars”: Dunsany (or his stand-in) bemoans the mundanity of our world from which all of the romance and wonder seems to have been sapped only to be made aware of the fantastic that hides behind the commonplace when a group of beggars come to town and point out the wonder that is all around us.

“Carcassonne”: A king at the zenith of his powers leaves his kingdom and glory behind and goes on a quest with all of his fabled warriors to conquer the unconquerable city of Carcassonne. They are driven by the power of song and prophecy, for it is “…the splendour of the rumours of Carcassonne and Fate’s decree that they should never come there, and the inspiration of Arleon and his harp…” that urge them to this deed which, in the end, decimates their numbers and steals their youth until only one remains: the broken king who has lost all in pursuit of a dream.

“In Zaccarath”: Shows Dunsany's preoccupation with decadence as an aspect of fantasy as well as depicting the point at which a society's zenith becomes the edge over which it topples into ruin and oblivion. This exemplifies his fascination with both "the great days that are never to come again" and the ultimate futility that such glory holds for even the greatest works of the mightiest kings are but chaff before the winds of time.

“The Field”: Once again the modern world of man with its industry and petty concerns comes into contention with the things of lasting worth. In this case the countryside is the last bastion of true beauty and is the city dweller's final refuge that yet retains the tinge of faery. The city is a man-made hell, the fields a natural heaven…though even this heaven is stained with an evil that tarnishes its purity, though it is uncertain whether it lies in its future or its past. There is no unalloyed good in Dunsany and every present happiness is marked by the sadness that is to overtake it in the end.


“The Day of the Poll”: Another meditation on the emptiness and ephemerality of modern life when compared to the things that truly matter. A poet tries to recuperate a citizen from the disease of politics of which Dunsany appears to have had a dim view, all sides being the same in the end and uncaring of the more lasting and beautiful elements of life. The everyday bustle of human activity is a distraction from those things that truly matter and give meaning and beauty to the world. It is only when this bustle dies down and we allow ourselves to listen that we can know and are able to hear wonders:

…the tide, finding the noise abated and being at the flow, told an old tale that he had heard in his youth about the deeps of the sea, the same which he had told to coastwise ships that brought it to Babylon by the way of Euphrates before the doom of Troy.

“The Unhappy Body”: Perhaps a glimpse into Dunsany's own life as a writer in which his tired body is forced by his dreaming soul to record the vistas and visions it sees in the night. The soul is an unrelenting task master and the body will find rest only at the end.

[Isidore · Rating 1 out of 5]

My rating reflects my opinion of the Wildside Press edition, not of Dunsany's wonderful tales!

Wildside Press does much good by resurrecting rare old books, but this edition of Dunsany's classic has some of the worst typos I have ever seen. For example:

Page 34: Instead of "Never since then have I seen my city alive," Wildside has: "Now since then have I seen my city alive," disastrously reversing the meaning of the sentence, at the very climax of "The Madness of Andelsprutz".

Page 111: Instead of "But the folk of the Weald arose and went back well-fed to their byres," Wildside has: "But the talk of the Weald arose and went back well-fed to byres" (two errors in one line!).

Page 113: A line has dropped out! Instead of ". . . and beat the roses against cottagers' panes, and whispered news of the befriending night," Wildside has: ". . . and beat the roses of the befriending night"--ruining one of Dunsany's more evocative passages.

And most ridiculous of all, at the climax of "Blagdaross", instead of "Saladin is in this desert with all his paynims", we get "Saladin is in this desert with all his pyjamas"!

And so on. These errors might be a minor annoyance encountered in, say, "War and Peace", but Dunsany's tales are very short, very carefully crafted, every word selected with care and precision. They are more nearly poetry than prose. Errors of this kind GLARE at the reader.

Wildside boasts that this edition is "authorized" by the Dunsany estate, but Dunsany would have been infuriated by it. Wildside needs to issue a corrected version, and maybe an apology.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction xiii
By Padriac Colum
Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean 1
Blagdaross 14
The Madnesg of Andelsprutz 19
Where the Tides Ebb and Flow 24
Bethmoora 30
Idle Days on the Yann 35
The Sword and the Idol 53
The Idle City 60
The Hashish Man 66
Poor Old Bill 72
The Beggars 78
Carcassonne Sa In Zaccaroth 95
The Field 99
The Day of the Poll 103
The Unhappy Body 107
The Sword of Welleran 111
The Fall of Babbulkund 127
The Kith of the Elf-Folk 142
The Highwayman 159
In the Twilight 165
The Ghosts 170
The Whirlpool 175
The Hurricane 178
The Fortress Unvanquishable Save for Sacnoth 180
The Lord of Cities 199
The Doom of La Traviata 207
On the Dry Land 210

The stories are all rather short, but damn well written. Highly enjoyable stuff.

[Omaira · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.9

"Soñé que había hecho algo horrible, tan horrible, que se me negó sepultura en tierra y en mar, y ni siquiera había infierno para mí"

Poltrarnees 5/5
Blagdaross 3/5
Día de elecciones 3/5
La locura de Andelsprutz 4/5
En donde suben y bajan las mareas 5/5
Bethmoora 4/5
Días de ocio en el país del Yann 4/5
La espada y el idolo 4(5
El hombre del hachís 3/5
En Zaccarath 3/5
La ciudad ociosa 4/5
El campo 5/5
El pobre Bill 3/5
Carcasona 5/5
Los mendigos 3/5
El cuerpo infeliz 5/5


En mi afán de probar a Lord Dunsany en papel, hallé esta maravillosa antología y no pude resistirme a leerla. Ya había probado antes al autor, pero fue una experiencia tan nefasta que prefiero hacer borrón y cuenta nueva antes que recordarla.

Poltrarnees me ha parecido un relato precioso. Lord Dunsany sabe como transportar al lector a siglos que parecen ya olvidados por la humanidad y hacerte sentir, ciertamente, especial. Exploradores ,los cuales van en busca del mar, desaparecen y no retornan más, por este hecho todo el mundo en la ciudad odia el mar.

De donde suben y bajan las mareas es seguramente de los relatos de este señor que más se acercan al terror. Como la primera vez que lo leí, me ha parecido maravilloso. En él, un hombre está maldito y su maldición consiste en que aunque esté muerto, jamás podrá descansar. Es decir, los eones pasan por delante de él y él lo único que puede hacer es observar como Londres y otras ciudades caen en decadencia y finalmente desaparecen.

"Y tanto hastío sentí al mirar aquellas cosas abandonadas, que quise llorar, mas no pude porque estaba muerto"

El campo me ha parecido una obra maestra del autor. El final es totalmente rompedor y me ha recordado, en cierta manera, a ese in crescendo que utiliza siempre Lovecraft en sus relatos para dejar al lector anonadado. En el relato el protagonista comienza a sentirse incomodo cuando visita un trozo de tierra (el campo) y llama a su amigo poeta para que le explique el por qué.

En Carcasona no hace falta ni presentaciones. Me ha recordado totalmente al ciclo onírico de Lovecraft, sobre todo a Celephaïs y The White Ship, es decir, la perfección. En el relato una serie de personas buscan la ciudad de Carcasona.

"Los años van pasando por nosotros como grandes pájaros ahuyentados de alguna antigua ciénaga gris por la fatalidad, el Destino y los designios de Dios. Y puede muy bien ser que contra éstos no haya guerrero que sirva, y que el Hado nos haya vencido, y que nuestro afán haya fracasado"

Los demás relatos me han parecido buenos y entretenidos. Destacar Bethmoora, Días de ocio en el país del Yann, El cuerpo infeliz, La locura de Andelsprutz y Blagdaross como obras que me han encantado de principio a fin pero no me he sentido capaz de darles el cinco redondo.

Otros relatos como El hombre del hachís, En Zaccarath, Los mendigos o El pobre Bill son entretenidos pero bastante simplones y sin chicha.

Y es que Lord Dunsany no es un autor que se pueda leer rápido y sin saborear su prosa. Tiene una prosa única y la domina como solo él sabe hacerlo y en ciertos momentos me ha recordado a Tolkien (que por cierto, recibió influencias de Lord Dunsany… yo no digo nada [debéis leerlo]). Y si habéis leído a Tolkien habréis comprobado que, precisamente eso con Tolkien, no se hace.

Esta segunda catada ha sido todo un éxito y espero leer pronto La hija del Rey del País de los Elfos (que espero que sea una novela más amena que algunos relatos que he leído en esta antología).

ᴄᴀᴛʜᴜʀʏᴀ ғᴜᴇʀᴀ.

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ovo su dokone priče, ali prekrasne. Vrijedi pročitati.

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these stories are excellent, with some among Dunsany's best work. They are diverse in tone and setting, but the usual themes of death, desire, divinity, and doom abound.

As an aside, the recent edition annotated by Portnow has serious deficiencies. I detailed these in my Amazon review, but my main complaint is the intrusiveness and extraneousness of the annotations.

[Nente · Rating 5 out of 5]

After finishing one of these stories, called Where the Tides Ebb and Flow, I posted "Oh what a story."
I was unjust. Each of these stories would merit that, and much more praise than that. This short collection took me a long time, but it shouldn't be gulped down in any case.

[Gregg Wingo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lord Dunsany was an Edwardian Irish peer and contemporary and friend of H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, and W.B. Yeats. He was also a graduate of Sandhurst and had a distinguished British military record. He was a prolific writer with hundreds of published works and despite acclaim for his poetry, it was his importance in defining the future genre of fantasy which became his legacy. He had seminal influences on the triumvirate of weird pulp horror: H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard.

"A Dreamer's Tales" is a significant example of his work in crafting the pre-pulp genre and the post-pulp genre through its direct influence on Tolkien's future work. The book is made up of sixteen short stories including "Carcassonne", a pre-Cthulhu link between Ambrose Bierce and Robert Chambers' early creations and the full-blown development by Lovecraft. It also contains "The Hashish Man", a cross between Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" and "Reefer Madness". Like many prose writing poets, Dunsany's writing often has a lyrical quality to it and this is best revealed in "Blagdaross":

“An old cork spoke first. He said: "I grew in Andalusian woods, but never listened to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew strong in the sunlight waiting for my destiny. One day the merchants came and took us all away and carried us all along the shore of the sea, piled high on the backs of donkeys, and in a town by the sea they made me into the shape that I am now. One day they sent me northward to Provence, and there I fulfilled my destiny. For they set me as a guard over the bubbling wine, and I faithfully stood sentinel for twenty years. For the first few years in the bottle that I guarded the wine slept, dreaming of Provence; but as the years went on he grew stronger and stronger, until at last whenever a man went by the wind would put out all his might against me, saying, 'Let me go free; let me go free!' And every year his strength increased, and he grew more clamourous when men went by, but never availed to hurl me from my post. But when I had powerfully held him for twenty years they brought him to the banquet and took me from my post, and the wine arose rejoicing and leapt through the veins of men and exalted their souls within them till they stood up in their places and sang Provencal songs. But me they cast away—me that had been sentinel for twenty years, and was still as strong and staunch as when first I went on guard. Now I am an outcast in a cold northern city, who once have known the Andalusian skies and guarded long ago Provencal suns that swam in the heart of the rejoicing wine."

It is a bit of heroic myth from a wine bottle and other everyday items, almost a prose series of still lifes. Overall, the book is a fun read very different from the experimental works of his other contemporaries like Joyce and Woolf or even Bertrand Russell who he lost out for the Noble Prize for Literature. His literary developments were in genre creation not stylistic innovation.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Las historias de Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, o Lord Dunsany, como ha trascendido literariamente, tienen la virtud de ser intemporales. Creó un universo propio, rico en lenguaje, cuyo germen es lo fantástico y onírico. Ciudades prodigiosas, nombres fabulosos, evocadores, y una prosa cercana a la poesía, así como una gran imaginación, hacen de Lord Dunsany un escritor único. Incluso hay un término para referirse a este tipo de literatura, dunsaniana. Lovecraft, Tolkien o Borges son algunos escritores influenciados por el escritor irlandés.

Estos son los dieciséis relatos incluidos en “Cuentos de un soñador” (A Dreamer´s Tales, 1910):

- Poltarness, la que mira al mar
- Blagdaross
- Día de elecciones
- La locura de Andelsprutz
- En donde suben y bajan las mareas
- Bethmoora
- Días de ocio en el país del Yann
- La espada y el ídolo
- El hombre del hachís
- En Zaccarath
- La ciudad ociosa
- El campo
- El pobre Bill
- Carcasona
- Los mendigos
- El cuerpo feliz

De entre estos, los que más me gustaron fueron “En donde suben y bajan las mareas”, fascinante cuento sobre una maldición que se alarga durante siglos, y “Días de ocio en el país del Yann”, un viaje fascinante por el País de los Sueños y sus magníficas ciudades.

Esta no es una fantasía de espada y brujería, con acción a raudales. Este es un libro para degustar sin prisas, y recrearse en sus descripciones.

[Amy Prosser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of short stories famed for inspiring famous writers such as Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Ursula Le Guin. The stories are fantasy, but they are sometimes set in the real world, like London. I wasn’t a huge fan of the style of writing. The stories aren’t really about the action (there is very little actually happening in the stories). Instead, the focus seems to be on the mood created by the author. Sometimes I thought it worked quite well, while some stories just ended up being thoroughly dull. My favorites from the collection were: “Where the Tides Ebb and Flow” (horror story), “The Sword and the Idol” (religious story), “The Field,” and “The Day of the Poll” (political story). Since he is a key figure in the development of fantasy writing, I think it’s worth reading at least one of his stories.

[Sebastien LaQroix · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is an author that I wish I had read earlier in my life, its Lord Dunsany. Being a fan of Lovecraft, I had heard of Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, before. Knowing he was a major influence on Lovecraft, I have no excuse for not reading Lord Dunsany earlier. Mea culpa. If you want to inject a bit of magic into your life, you really need to read Dunsany. He is one of the few authors who can give Tolkien a run for his money. And though I’m prone to superlatives, I’m not exaggerating here.

I recently just finished A Dreamer’s Tales, one of Lord Dunsany’s many short story collections. Like my discussion of Tolkien, labeling this a review of Dunsany feels almost insulting to a master fantasist and cornerstone of the fantasy genre. Therefore, this post is more my own feelings upon reading Lord Dunany’s tales of fantasy for hte first time. They were some of the most beautiful pieces of short fantasy I’ve ever read, and, while not all are packed with action, they possess a certain magic that very, very few authors can pull off.

Take the story Blagdaross. Lord Dunsany manages inject magic into garbage. GARBAGE!

An unstruck match that somebody had dropped spoke next. “I am a child of the sun,” he said, “and an enemy of cities; there is more in my heart than you know of. I am a brother of Etna and Stromboli; I have fires lurking in me that will one day rise up beautiful and strong. We will not go into servitude on any hearth nor work machines for our food, but we will take out own food where we find it on that day when we are strong. There are wonderful children in my heart whose faces shall be more lively than the rainbow; they shall make a compact with the North wind, and he shall lead them forth; all shall be black behind them and black above them, and there shall be nothing beautiful in the world but them; they shall seize upon the earth and it shall be theirs, and nothing shall stop them but our old enemy the sea.”

Then an old broken kettle spoke, and said: “I am the friend of cities. I sit among the slaves upon the hearth, the little flames that have been fed with coal. When the slaves dance behind the iron bars I sit in the middle of the dance and sing and make our masters glad. And I make songs about the comfort of the cat, and about the malice that is towards her in the heart of the dog, and about the crawling of the baby, and about the ease that is in the lord of the house when we brew the good brown tea; and sometimes when the house is very warm and slaves and masters are glad, I rebuke the hostile winds that prowl about the world.”

Broken kettles and unused matches are magical putty in the hands of Lord Dunsany. Tolkien may have created whole mythologies and worlds full of magic. Lord Dunsany will give you a huge dose of wonder has he describes the thoughts of a piece of discarded cork! Lord Dunsany make you nostalgic for a time you’ve never lived in and a past you’ve never had.

Deserted cities, cities with souls, Kings and knights searching for a city they’re fated to never find, hashish smokers traveling through other realms, towns where you aren’t allowed to ask questions because doing so will wake up the dreamers and usher in the end of the world. This is the fantasy we need in the modern age.

Another story features the once glorious city of Bethmoora. Once great, the city now lies abandoned. The story goes that at the height of its glory, the city was visited by three messengers. Once the inhabitants of the city hear snatches of the message, they’re all possessed by a great fear that makes them all abandon the city in a single day. What did the messengers say? Wouldn’t we all like to know.

All of Lord Dunsany’s stories feature some of the finest, most poetic prose I’ve read. The King James Bible’s influence over Lord Dunsany is apparent and could very well be part of what makes his writing so magical.

Lord Dunsany hasn’t just written stories, he’s managed to awaken a sense of wonder that, imho, rivals even what Tolkien did with Middle-earth. Why Dunsany isn’t on the pedestal right next to Tolkien bewilders me and makes me think there are sinister and conspiratorial forces in the universe that are purposefully memory holing wondrous works of fantasy. Given the state of modern popular fantasy, I’m not so quick to dismiss those suspicions.

You MUST read Lord Dunsany. He’s as much a cornerstone of fantasy as Tolkien is, perhaps more so.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Lovecraft's dream-stories in my opinion, but nevertheless LOTS of really awesome ideas and concepts. This book exudes creativity.

If you are tired of modern fantasy, aka Tolkien derivatives, read this. It is in line with the arabian tales/poe/lovecraft type of fantasy which we see very little of today.

[Florin Pitea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it. Liked it a lot. Can hardly wait to go through the next volume in the omnibus edition.

[Gonzalo Eduardo Rodríguez Castro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un buen libro si lo que te gusta es leer cuentos fantásticos épicos y de “prosa sublime”, poética si se quiere. Hay que ubicarse en su época y sobre todo en el entorno de una vida de noble que rodeaba a su autor.

[Ivan Lanìa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dopo essermi gustato i suoi Fifty-One Tales, non ho resistito alla tentazione di visitare per una seconda volta la biblioteca incantata di lord Edward Dunsany e ho optato per il volume di poco precedente A Dreamer's Tales – e l'impressione è buona seppur non straordinaria.
Se i Fifty-One Tales erano essenzialmente opere di flash fiction talvolta un po' diafana, ma estremamente varia per toni, temi e atmosfere, questi A Dreamer's Tales sono sbilanciati nella direzione opposta: una buona metà di essi sono testi molto molto simili che dipingono in barocco dettaglio una teoria di città invisibili (citazione voluta) che lord Dunsany immaginava soffuse di splendore orientale (e orientalista) e maledette da pestilenze misteriose, dèi gelosi e dispotici sultani – Andelsprutz, Bethmoora, la Città Indolente, l'eterna Zaccarath, i borghi lungo la valle del fiume Yann, tutti questi insediamenti sono metropoli esotiche e surreali dipinteci per il gusto del visionario, ma relativamente povere di intrecci e di eventi, spesso usate come contenitore per incastonarvi piccoli aneddoti anch'essi un po' troppo affini fra di loro, tutti a base di maledizioni e prodigi ambigui. Probabilmente tali testi funzionerebbero bene se fruiti uno al mese, come fossero pasticceria di mandorla, ma uno dopo l'altro rischiano di nauseare. Fa eccezione in tutto ciò il secondo racconto del dittico di Bethmoora, "The Hashish Man", in cui la vicenda di "magia urbana" è incastonata in una cornice di viaggio siderale assolutamente squisita che palesemente ha dato il La ai testi onirici della scuola lovecraftiana americana (leggerlo per credere).
Dall'altro lato, ho decisamente apprezzato i racconti di soggetto "non urbano" e di tono "leggendario": squisito il mito marittimo-amoroso dai tocchi ovidiani "Poltarness, Beholder of the Ocean", dolcemente commovente la favola esopea "Blagdaross", angosciante il giusto il trittico di storie dell'orrore "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow", "Poor Old Bill" e "The Unhappy Body" (per altro tutte legate a un tema di tortura corporale, chissà a cosa pensava il Lord in quel periodo...), "solamente" discreti i due testi satirici "The Field" e "The Day of the Pool", assolutamente una bomba "The Sword and the Idol" e "Carcassonne", che trasudavano senso del meraviglioso e posizionamento morale come un mito d'autore dovrebbe fare.

Com'era prevedibile, la prosa breve di lord Ed sembra articolarsi in un numero limitato di macro-filoni e a me ne stanno piacendo alcuni più di altri, ma sicuramente mi sta piacendo abbastanza da buttare un occhio prossimamente sul volume gemello di A Dreamer's Tales, ovverosia The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories.

[Foe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Más que un libro, es un aleph: sus ciento cuarenta páginas contienen toda la fantasía del siglo XX. De una forma u otra, Dunsany es precursor de algunos de los nombres más destacados de la literatura fantástica posterior.

Es posible trazar fácilmente influencias narrativas, como sobre la etapa onírica de Lovecraft, las ciudades invisibles de Calvino, o los dioses de Gaiman. Hay imágenes que reaparecen con otra forma en obras futuras: Bar-Wul-Yann me recordó a las Argonath, y la Ciudad Que No Puede Ser Tomada En Guerra al Nido de Águilas. El lenguaje y el tono recuerdan a Borges y Gorodischer pero, sobre todo, sientan la base para todos los hacedores de mundos que dominarán la literatura fantástica en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Todos ellos están en deuda con las técnicas y el enfoque de Dunsany: toda época pasada fue mejor, conflicto entre grandeza y decadencia, ambientación preindustrial.

Y con todo lo que inspira, es poco lo que alcanza en sí misma esta obra. Sirva una anécdota personal para explicar mi sensación: al retomar la lectura al día siguiente de haberla abandonado, abrí el libro por donde pensaba que iba y al empezar a leer el relato me di cuenta de que lo había leído y salté al siguiente. Pero al pasar las páginas y llegar al final noté que era distinto al que recordaba, y que en realidad no había leído ese relato. Ni el anterior. Mismo tema, mismo tono, misma estructura, misma falta de personajes, misma historia con otro nombre.

140 páginas, 16 relatos, ¿4? ¿5? personajes, ¿3? temas. Uno detrás de otro, tanta repetición aburre, cansa, agota. Una lástima, teniendo en cuenta que entre ellos está Carcasona, uno de mis relatos favoritos de siempre. Curiosamente, el relato con el que comparte temática (el destino), En Zaccarath, ha sido el que más me ha gustado de los que no conocía.

Finalmente, la edición de Alianza se mantiene fiel al nivel al que nos tiene acostumbrados la editorial. En El cuerpo infeliz, traducen "sensible" como "sensible" en vez de "sensato", y en El hombre del hachís malinterpreta "of an evening" por "todas las noches" en lugar de "muchas noches", que se contradice en la página siguiente cuando menciona que no lo hacía dos noches seguidas.

[Nicifor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poltarness, Beholder of Ocean 4☆
Blagdaross 3☆
The Madness of Andelsprutz 4☆
Where the Tides Ebb and Flow 5☆
Bethmoora 3☆
Idle Days on the Yann 3☆
The Sword and the Idol 3☆
The Idle City 2☆
The Hashish Man 2☆
Poor Old Bill 4☆
The Beggars 2☆
Carcassonne 3☆
In Zaccarath 2☆
The Field 3☆
The Day of the Pool 4☆
The Unhappy Body 3☆

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

An odd little book, but an absolute must read for anyone who enjoys fables or myths or Victorian authors. Fans of Algernon Blackwood, W.B. Yeats, or Ella Young will adore Lord Dunsany's magnificent prose and vivid imagination.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A masterful collection by a fantasy great. The best stories in here are among the best fantasies ever written.

Bill Ward and C.S.E. Cooney discuss it in detail in a series of reviews on my web site, covering each story:

http://www.howardandrewjones.com/cate...

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lord Dunsany is one of my favorite authors. The Beggars is my favorite short story of all time. If you love poetic prose à la Homer, Tolkien, Gibran, and the Song of Songs, then you should read Lord Dunsany. His fantastic imagination and romantic prose is unrivaled.

[Bex · Rating 3 out of 5]

2* Not his best :(. The stories that are just like 'what if there was a weird city?' (of which there are 7) are the only ones that aren't annoyingly on the nose.

January 2025 re-read: Past me was hating too hard I love it when there's a weird city. Like 3*

[Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lord Dunsany in top form is like the finest of poetry. Surreal,magical fantasy and a collection of stories that is darker than Sword of Welleran and Other Stories.

[Gloria Dauden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una gozada. Mi favorito: Donde Suben y Bajan las Mareas.

[Javier Iglesias · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Poltarnees, la que mira al mar":

"Hilnaric no se casó jamás. Pero su dote se destinó a edificar un temploen que los hombres maldicen al Océano.
Una vez al año, con solmenes ritos y ceremonias, maldicen las mareas del Mar; y la mira se mira en él y los aborrece".

"Blagdaross":

"A poco dijo el otro niño: "Déjame a mí también matar a Saladino" Y Blagdar. en su corazón de madera, que estaba henchido con pensamiento de batalla, dijo: "Aún soy Blagdaross".

"Día de elecciones":

"Cuando volvieron, ya desmayaba el torbellino en las calles, la noche escondía el brilo de los carteles, y la marea, encontrándose con que el ruido iba decayendo, y llegando a su plenitud, se puso a contarb el antiguo cuento aprendido en su mocedad, en que hable del fondo de os mares; el mismo cuento que contó a los navíos costeros que llevaba a Babilonia por ña vçia del Esufrates, antes de la destrucción de Troya".

"La locura de Andelsprutz":

"Mas las ventanas de las casas de Andelsprutz miraban espantadas las llanuras, como los ojos de un loco (...) Cuando cayó la noche y se corrieron las cortinas sobre las ventanas, percibí lo que mo había pensado a la luz del día. entonces conocí que Andeslprutz estaba muerta".

"En donde suben y bajan las mareas":

"En ese instante abrí los ojos en la cama de una casa de Londres, y fuera, a la luz radiante de la mañana, trinabam unos gorriones sobre un árbol; y aún había lágrimas en mi rostro, pues la represión propia se debilita cn el sueño. Me levanté y abrí de par en par la ventana, y extendiendo mis manos sobre el jardincillo, bendije a los pájaros cuyos cantos me habían arrancado a los turnulentos y espantosos siglos de mi sueño".

"Bethmoora":

"Dicen que el desierto deseaba a Bethmoora, que ansiaba entrar por sus hermosas calles y enviar sobre sus templos y sus casas sus torbellinos envueltos en arena. Porque odia el ruido y la vista del hombre en su viejo corazón malvado, y quiere tener Bethmoora silenciosa y quieta, y sólo atenta al fatal amor que él murmura a sus puertas".

"Días de ocio en el país del Yann":

"Y el momento llegó en que debíamos separarnos, el caitán y yo; él para volver a su hermosa Belzoond, yo a buscar por extraños medios mi camino de retorno a los campos brumosos que conocen todos los poetas (...) Nos miramos largamente uno a otro, sabiendo que no habíamos de encontrarnos jamás, porque mi fantasía va decayendo al paso de los años y entro cada vez más raramente en las Tierra del Ensueño".

"La espada y el ídolo":

"Un día fue Ith con su hacha de piedra al bosque y allí permaneció muchos días. Una noche volvió, y cuando la mañana siguiente despertó la tribu, vio algo que era como un hombre y que, sin embargo no era un hombre. Estaba sentado en el monte con los codos hacia afiera e inmóvil (...) Y algunos de la tribu le preguntaron acerca de aquella cosa inmóvil que era como un hombre, y les dijo Ith: "Es Dios".

"El hombre del haschisch":

"Una tardé monté una guardia junto a un fuego, y, acomodado en una silla, mastiqué mi haschisch; y la primera cosa que vi al llegar a Betmoora fue al marinero de la negra cicatriz, que paseaba calle abajo, dejando las huellas de sus pies en la amarilla arena. Y entonces comprendí que iba a ver el secreto poder que mantenía despoblada a Bethmoora".

"En Zaccarath":

"Y el profeta habló al rey, y le habló así: "¡Ay de ti y ay de tus mujeres, porque tu ruina será cruel y pronta! Ya en el cielo los dioses evitan tu dios, porque conocen su sentencia y lo que está escrito en él, y ve cómo el olvido se leanta ante él como una neblina".

"La ciudad ociosa":

"Hubo un tiempo una ciudad que era una ciuda ociosa donde los hombres contaban cuentos vanos. Y era costumre e esta ciuad imponer a todos los hombres que entraban en ella el portazgo de una historia ociosa a la puerta".

"El campo":

"Durante un gran rato estuvo silencioso, y, entre tanto, todas mis antiguas inquietudes volvieron con mis presagios para lo futuro. Entonces le dije: "¿Qué clase de campo es éste?". Y él movió la cabeza con pesadumbre. "Es un campo de batalla".

"El pobre Bill":

"Frecuenté algunas tardes aquel lugar con la esperanza de escuchar de los marineros que allí se inclinaan sobre extraños vinos algo acerca de un rumor que había llegado a mis oídos de cierta flota de galeones de la vieja España que aún se decía que flotaba en los mares del Sur por alguna región no registrada en los mapas".

"Carcasona":

"Entonces desenvainaron sus espadas, y uno junto al otro, bajaron a la selva, buscando aún a Carcasona. Yo imagino que no fueron muy lejos, porque había mortales pantanos en aquel bosque, y tinieblas más tenaces que las noches, y bestias terriles acostumbradas a sus caminos. Ni hay allí leyenda alguna, ni en verso ni entre los cantos del pueblo de las campiñas, de que alguno hubiese llegado a Carcasona".

"Los mendigos":

"Y uno de ellos volvióse hacia las ahumadas casas, diciendo: "Benditas sean las casas, porque dentro de ellas sueñan los hombres". Entonces percibí lo que jamás había pensado: que todas aquellas casas absortas no eran iguales, sino diferentes unas de otras, porque todas soñaban sueños diferentes".

"El cuerpo infeliz":

"Allí hay una montaña que se alza escarpada sobre Londres, en parte de cristal y en parte de niebla. A ella van los soñadores cuando se ha apagado el ruido del tráfico. Al principio apenas pueden soñar a causa del estruendo; pero antes de media noche se para, gira y se va a marea menguante con todos sus naufragios. Entonces, los soñadores se levantan y escalan la montaña fulgurante, y en su cumbre encuentran los galeones del ensueño".

[Sula · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've started to read this several times but always changed my mind after the first paragraph thinking it was going to be too purple-prosy. It's been on my to-read for so long I can't even remember how I first came across it.

Some bits are a little heavy going, but there's some beautiful descriptions too. Various fantastical cities are described which put me in mind of Invisible Cities. Unlike Invisible Cities it's not just descriptive and there's some interesting little stories that make one think. It's left me a little more imaginative and with the more romantic day-dreamy view of a child. I feel like Anne from Anne of Green Gables would enjoy this with it's beautiful writing and romance!

Some of the stories didn't work for me at all, but I enjoyed the opportunity to be transported to places of legends and dreams - a refreshing change from today's fantasy of long stories with characters taking a much stronger role.

Here's a quote of Ursula K. Le Guin on Lord Dunsany which I think sums this up rather well:

'On the map of literature, I see Dunsany as a small, walled city in a desert, with opal walls and spires of bronze, and strange little streets, and a great gate made from a single tooth. The lord of the city is a generous host. It is not on the beaten path, but it is worth visiting.'

[Ben Haines]

Good classic stuff. Lots of invented cities, often in collapse. Kind of an Invisible Cities vibe, "Idle Days on the Yann" especially felt like it had to be an inspiration. Always a traveler speaking with longing about a thing he will never see, or never see again. A city who taxes those passing through by making them tell an idle tale, which are collected and given to the sad king.

A guard who

turned from me and would say no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with ancient custom

Also got black riders vibes at some points with the almost goofy earnestness and angst of people in despair. And the stupid pun in "The Field."

...once I met with a traveler who said that somewhere in the midst of a great desert are gathered together the souls of all dead cities. He said that he was lost once in a place where there was no water, and he heard their voices speaking all the night."
But I said: "I was once without water in a desert and heard a city speaking to me, but knew not whether it really spoke to me or not, for on that day I heard so many terrible things, and only some of them were true."
And the man with the black hair said: "I believe it to be true"

"In Zaccarath" as good an Ozymandias take as any. Even with his sidebar about the scent of blethany.

"The Field" and "The Day of the Poll" were my least favorite.

Closes with "The Unhappy Body" which puts everything else in a more serious context and justifies the earnestness. Shares some of the depressive creative atmosphere of "The City of Dreadful Night". Lord Dunsany says

No sensible body cares for its soul. A soul is a little thing, and should not rule a body. You should drink and smoke more till he ceases to trouble you

but Yeats* says that as a swan isn't a burden to the lake, neither is a man burdened by the soul that is in him.

*idk I can't remember

[Muir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was loath to come to the end of this.
I have a theory, a dis-ease, a habitual urge to connect everything I read to Tolkien; I cannot help but see him as the focal point that all my other reading experience gathers around (whether a star wars novelisation or the bible).
To read this, so soon after Beowulf, felt almost like a religious experience, I am not going to lie. It felt like falling backwards into a pool of time and discovering that you can breathe underwater. I recognised these stories, the way these words wound around my consciousness, as if I had discovered the roots of Irminsul, less the connection to heaven and more a Jungian Sumerian Irminsul holding all the Ley Lines in place (Genshin lore, apologies).

I guess what I’m trying to say, in this long-winded and pretentious way, is that reading this, and Beowulf, felt like coming home.

My favourite tales (that may or may not have brought me to tears)
- Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean

“the face of Hilnaric became a resting-place for mysteries and dreams.”

“And the whole plain of water glittering with late sunlight, and the surges and the currents and the white sails of ships were all together like the face of a strange new god that has looked at a man for the first time in the eyes at the moment of his death; and Athelvok, looking on the wonderful Sea, knew why it was that the dead never return, for there is something that the dead feel and know, and the living would never understand even though the dead should come and speak to them about it. And there was the Sea smiling at him, glad with the glory of the sun.”

(The end of this story in particular, which I will not spoil)

- Idle Days on the Yann

“And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands.”

- The Sword and the Idol
- The Field

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the dry but influential "The Gods of Pegana," I thought I might try something else from Lord Dunsany. As this was a collection of short stories, I thought it might be a good pick.

I wasn't disappointed.

"A Dreamer's Tales" is far more varied and digestible. All of the stories are variations on liminal flights of fancy, with recurring themes of yearning, exploration, dreaming, and death.

The stories run from the half-lives of every day objects in Blagdross (predating, but similar to "The Velveteen Rabbit") to the dream travels of "Idle Days on the Yann" and "The Hashish Man" to the suble horror of "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" and "Poor Old Bill," to the unifying and conclusive, "The Unhappy Body." They have in common a sort of nostalgia mixed with curiosity and wanderlust - a need to see what has been, what has been lost, and what lies beyond the next hill. (With that last being quite literally the focus of "Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean") On the whole, the reader gets a sense of being a pebble in the river of history, with the stream stretching beyond memory behind, and beyond comprehension ahead.

Four Stars - I feel like I rate a lot of stuff four stars, and I wonder if that's even a valuable metric. For instance, I doubt this is as "IMPORTANT" as "The Gods of Pegana," but it's so much more enjoyable, so I end up rating them both four stars. Add to that the fact that I'm largely basing my reading list off of trusted suggestions. It's hard to believe I'd waste time finishing a 1 or 2 star book - so I wonder if there's any point to having those ratings?

In any case, I'd recommend this as an entry point to reading Lord Dunsany. It was far more accessible than the dry although still enjoyable (to me, anyway) "The Gods of Pegana."

[Nicolás MGM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cada una de las narraciones que componen este libro son una pulida y perfecta obra de arte. La imaginación amplia de Dunsany se manifiesta aquí de una manera asombrosa. "Poltarnees, la que mira al mar" y "Días de ocio en el País del Yann" son sencillamente espectaculares; el primero basa su argumento en el amor y la fascinación de Dunsany hacia el mar, hacia la magia, a la nostalgia, a la noche, a las danzas y sobre todo a la enorme capacidad de asombro vista desde un ángulo fantástico. En el segundo relato, el poético recorrido de un navío sobre el río Yann, va describiendo deliciosamente las fantásticas ciudades y sus habitantes a lo largo de la travesía onírica. "Blagdaross" abunda en ternura e ingenio. "Carcasona" prefigura un tipo de relato que Lovecraft y Bierce desarrollarían felizmente a su vez. "En donde suben y bajan las mareas" es un relato inquietante, relato que sólo la mente de Dunsany ha podido imaginar: Un hombre cree haber cometido un pecado inconcebible, sin embargo no lo recuerda; al morir arrojan su cuerpo a un río infecto, fangoso, en el cuál las sucias olas sacuden a su antojo. Pasa el tiempo y nadie le da entierro cristiano (debido al ominoso pecado) y pasan así los años, y Londres cambia, pero unos hombres encapuchados se encargan de generación en generación, y a través de los años, a colocar su cuerpo en el borde del río de barro, junto al reflujo mugriento. El final es bellísimo. "Bethmoora", "La ciudad ociosa" "La espada y el ídolo" también son relatos magníficos, repletos de elementos mágicos. Dunsany ha sido uno de los grandes escritores del género fantástico, sino el mejor.