In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales

by Lord Dunsany, S.T. Joshi (Editor)

A new edition of the Fantasy Tales that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft 

A pioneer in the realm of imaginative literature, Lord Dunsany has gained a cult following for his influence on modern fantasy literature, including such authors as J.R.R. Tolkien and H. P. Lovecraft. This unique collection of short stories ranges over five decades of work. Liberal selections of earlier tales—including the entire Gods of Pegana as well as such notable works as "Idle Days of the Yann" and "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth"—are followed by memorable later tales, including several about the garrulous traveler Joseph Jorkens and the outrageous murder tale "The Two Bottles of Relish." Throughout, the stories are united by Dunsany's cosmic vision, his impeccable and mellifluous prose, and his distinctively Irish sense of whimsy.

Here published for the first time by Penguin Classics, this edition is the only annotated version of Dunsany's short stories. 

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

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

[Arisawe Hampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book you search for on a cool autumn evening or a late summer day. It is a book you want to read and savor. The tales are timeless, often melancholic and filled with fantasy, delight and the fleeting nature of life, existence and the world (or worlds) around us. Dunsany evokes the sublime, the sacred, the profane and the childlike. Fans and skeptics of Tolkien alike—will surely appreciate his vignettes of life. These tales offer these vignettes of the fantasy world as gods, goddesses, warriors of old, travelers in faraway lands, story-tellers...even children playing pirates. Pure existentialism!

In my preference, I loved the earlier mythological work 'The Gods of Pegana' as much as 'The Tales of Wonder'. The prose poems were equally wondrous and in a few I could see where the Argentinian author, Jorge Luis Borges was highly influenced.

If you are interested in early fantasy literature, when the genre was in its infancy, pick up this collection. It is not antique, it is not dated. The best part is the writing is readable, accessible and highly poetic. Dunsany has a way with words and his story telling ability is highly admirable. Read this and you'll want to read more of him.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

October 2011

No doubt most folks just call Lord Byron "Byron" (I know I do), but does anyone just say Dunsany? That's Lord Dunsany to you, and you'd better hope Neil Gaiman doesn't come after you for that. Granted, I haven’t actually read The King of Elfland's Daughter yet, but I've heard good things about it--and when I found this collection, I figured I'd give it a try. Stories from one of the fathers of modern mythic fantasy? I'm in!

Oh dear.

Here's the thing: Dun--sorry, Lord Dunsany--writes some fantastic stories. Really awesome stuff. Dreamlike, poetic prose about gods and heroes, epic quests, strange worlds and cities and beasts, it's all really, really...

...kind of...

...dull.

Y'know, this "Gods of Pegāna" stuff isn't working for me. Same for the "Tales of Wonder" and the "Prose Poems." Sorry, but you know what I would really like to read? A good old-fashioned ghost story. And maybe a murder mystery. How about a kids' story? Or something about a dog? And you know what would be really great, a series of sci-fi, fantasy, horror and adventure tales all told by an unreliable, hard-drinking old liar in a London gentlemen's club!

What's that? Lord Dunsany wrote those, too? Sweeeet.

It's funny, really: Dunsany invented an entire pantheon of gods and entire worlds in "The Gods of Pegāna" and "Time and the Gods," created some great legendary and mythic tales, wrote about heroes and elves and such, and what do I like? The ordinary stuff. The very un-Dunsany bits. "Thirteen at Table" is a nice little ghost story; "The Two Bottles of Relish" was a fantastic murder mystery. "The Cut" is about a dog that learns the value of money--entertaining stuff. And the highlight of this collection were the Jorkens tales--only a handful out of several volumes' worth, which are sadly very difficult to find. And if nothing else, you must find and read "The Pirate of the Round Pond." Best story in this collection bar none.

Screw the gods. I'll take Jorkens, and a smart dog, and two kids and their toy sailboat any day of the week. Another whiskey, if you please!

[Romeo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the world Dunsany creates with these tales. I will keep him in a special place in my heart and soul from then on.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (1878–1957) - nobleman, dilettante, reactionary, unionist - is the weird fiction forerunner whose work has always done the least for me, and this didn't do much to change my mind. Dunsany started his publishing career in 1905 and kept at it into the 1950s, and this collection pulls from the entire half-century span. As with the other weird fiction editions in Penguin's Classics series, this was put together by S. T. Joshi, who does a good job of picking representative stories, an ok job writing an introductory overview (for the volume overall, not for each story), and a laughable job annotating.

We start with the entirety of Dunsany's first book, The Gods of Pegana, with The Gods of Pegana, a collection of myths about an invented pantheon told in a painfully-convincing Old Testament pastiche. These stories, with little in the way of plot and even less in the way of characters, are charming enough for a few pages, but their novelty wears off quickly.

Like M. John Harrison's Viriconium cycle, but seemingly without his introspection, the stories from there reveal a slow draining away of the fantastic, from the mythical grandeur of Pegana down to the final story, "The Pirates of Round Lake," an entirely mimetic piece where even piracy is a fantasy at odds with reality as a group of hooligans pretend to be corsairs while sinking other boys' toy ships. Preceding that are a number of tales of Jorkens, a drunken fabulist who tells the (unbelieving) other members of his club tall tales (of a new animal discovered in Africa, say, or another man's trip to Mars in a biplane) after being plied with enough liquor.

The best stories lie between these two poles, most particularly in the three linked stories of Yann, a dreamscape our narrator (Dunsany) finds himself in and whose denizens laugh at the idea of a mystical place called "Ireland." Like Pegana these stories have no plot other than travel, no character arcs to speak of, but they convey a sense of place and wonder that the narrator longs to return to. Dunsany also dabbled at this point in proto-sword & sorcery and more generically-delineated weird fiction (and prose poems), with various degrees of success.

Dunsany is fixated throughout all of these stories on dreams, time, endings, and transience (and strange music, and hatred of London and Business). Not unlike Lovecraft (who idolized him), he loves peeling away the illusion of human importance, but unlike HP, he finds there not shattering terror but mockery and condescension. I can understand the impulse, but too many of these stories feel glib and noncommittal.

"Tell me something," I said, "of this strange land?"
"How much do you know?" she said. "Do you know that dreams are illusion?"
"Of course I do," I said. "Every one knows that."
"Oh no they don't," she said, "the mad don't know it."
"That is true," I said.
"And do you know," she said, "that Life is illusion?"
"Of course it is not," I said, "Life is real, Life is earnest-"
At that both the witch and her cat (who had not moved from her old place by the hearth) burst into laughter. I stayed some time, for there was much that I wished to ask, but when I saw that the laughter would not stop I turned and went away.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Dunsany I just found this collection sort of dry and soulless. The footnotes tended to be like "Charon was a Greek ferryman if the dead across the river styx..." Etc. like come on bro, if you're reading this book you probably already know that shit. You also don't get any of Sidney Sime's illustrations which are always stunningly on point and really seem to flow from the exact same font of inspiration Dunsany himself drew; both prose and picture serving some greater whole.

If you're looking a singular somewhat comprehensive tome or have more academic interests in his works this would work but otherwise i would recomended trying to find books with Sime's illustrations or even just a random collection that catches you're eye on a shelf at the library. For this guy, dunsany thrives in environment less catalogued and clinical and more whimsical, easy breezy beautiful cover girl.

[Temucano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libro excepcionalmente bello, una fantasía sutil y embriagadora que invita a soñar. Destaca "Los dioses de Pegana ", punto de partida para toda la cosmogonía dunsaniana, de nombres exóticos, luchas entre dioses, con una variedad de profetas y de hombres ansiosos por desafiar los omnipotentes poderes divinos. Es un soplo fantástico que roza y se aleja, como ese sueño que se difumina al despertar pero que deja un buen sabor de boca.

También me encandilaron: "En el país del tiempo", "Los hombres de Yarnith", "La espada de Welleran", "El tesoro de los gibelinos", "En el crepúsculo" y "La ventana maravillosa".

Punto aparte para la edición, #8 del Ojo sin Párpado, uno de los entrañables de mi biblioteca.

16.2.2005

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a little bit of everything here from one of the grandfathers of modern speculative fiction: fantasy, sword & sorcery, fable & fairy tale, mystery, comedy. If you are already a Dunsany fan then you know this is a good collection, and if you are new to his work this is a great place to start.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across Lord Dunsany as a teenager (coming to him via Lovecraft and Tolkien) and read The King of Elfland's Daughter at age 17, which was pleasant and magical... but the early Lord Dunsany prose poem fantasy dreams in this volume were a stunning revelation to me.

At his best, the early Lord Dunsany comes off like a cross between Yates and Borges (with bits of Hesiod thrown in); he excels at a rhythmic language full of haunting descriptions and richly symbolic moments, of fragile gods and lost cities, and man and gods both doomed to disappearance.

Take, for example, this passage from "The Gods of Pegana":

"And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he sitteth by the river's edge to lament the forgotten things that drift upon it. A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost."

"The Gods of Pegana" is a nice start, but for me Lord Dunsany really comes into his own in "A Dreamer's Tales" and "A Book of Wonder" (from which there are a number of tales in this anthology).

"Idle Days on the Yann" is a piece of stunning beauty and constant surprises... gods unworshipped and alone, doomed, burdened... cities of dreamers, riverbanks of orchids and butterflies, voyagers to unknown lands...

"The Kith of the Elf-Folk" is Wagner meets Dickens as an elf yearns to become human and is given a fabricated soul (a charming scene worthy of an opera)... only to find that the industrial existence of modern life is cruelly inhuman.

"Where the Tides Edd and Flow" is one of the most beautiful and haunting evocations of post-death and an abandoned soul that I know.

I also loved: "The Fall of Babbulkund", "The Bride of the Man-Horse" and the almost Nabokov-like (I'm thinking Pale Fire) "The Exiles Club".

Reading this anthology, I was also surprised by just how long a career Lord Dunsany had and how much he wrote, and this volume gives a nice sampling of his later tales, including some from the Jorkens series and one from his Smethers/Linley detective stories. While these later tales -- more ironic and realistic -- show Dunsany leaving aside his early William Morris-esque fantasy for Doyle or Kipling-esque fiction, they are nevertheless well written and enjoyable.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. I wanted to read it because I'd seen Dunsany mentioned as one of Tolkien's influences, but it really goes beyond that. I can find traces of his influence in Roald Dahl (they were contemporaries, so it may have worked both ways) and Arthur C. Clarke, Neil Gaiman (who's mentioned his influence himself), and even a little in Terry Pratchett. His Creation story in particular, with the gods of broken and lost things made me smile remembering Prachett's Anoia, Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers. Of course, I imagine Dunsany based his in local folklore. Since all of the authors above are among my favourites, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that I liked his writing so much.

I thought this collection included only high fantasy, but there is a fair bit of sci-fi, murder mysteries and supernatural encounters, some in earnest, and some in a very tongue-in-cheek tone. I found "The Slugly Beast", contained in "The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens" to be a particularly delightful sci-fi story with a very Twilight Zone feel about it. Having read about Lowell's Mars canals added a touch of whimsy to it, since this story was written in 1930, when the possibility of intelligent life on Mars capable of building complex canals was still being considered, if already thought of as unlikely.

The fantasy stories and fairy tales included quests undertaken both by knights and non-armoured people, and featured time travel and portals, faeries and bog sprites, witches, cities that disappear, ghosts that are easily offended, and the occasional vampire. And then there’s the story of the dog who sells himself, which is halfway between contemporary humour and magical realism, and a couple who take in a satyr at great danger to their reputation (a hint of Pygmalion to this one). Dunsany refused to be pinned by genre, tone or themes, he explored wildly and freely, and did remarkable things with it.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased this Dunsany collection to sample some of the Jorgens tales, which Michael Dirda included in his "Comedy Tonight" list. While the Jorgens tales were pleasant, I was more impressed by the breadth of Dunsany's work, particulary the imagination contained in his "myth" stories, especially The Gods of Pagena. It's quite amazing to know that Pagena was published in 1905, before the works of other, better known fantasists. The prose style and detail are quite remarkable; it is like reading scripture. (Apparently Dunsany had a lot of familiarity with the King James Bible.)

Dunsany was quite prolific, and he moved away from fantasy and myth in his later years. This collection has a number of these "lighter" works, which are almost always pleasant and some are quite striking. I particularly liked "Our Distant Cousins" (a Jorkens tale) and "The Pirate of the Round Pound."

This collection is a good overview of Dunsany. Although long, it's probably better to consider this as a book for occasional "dips" than one to read beginning to end.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good collection of Dunsany-ness. There's a nice, wide selection from the mythology of the Pegana section to the humor of the Jorkens and other later tales. Some stories work better than others. The over-the-top epics really get on my nerves. On the other hand, I enjoyed the more lyrical, insightful bits such as "The Kith of the Elf-folk" tale. So Andersen-esque.

It wasn't exactly a quick read, but then you can always read the stories out of order and come back to it whenever you like. I give it three stars because it wasn't the best book I've ever read, but that isn't to say there were major flaws. I guess I'm more of a sustained narrative person. Dunsany's characterization in this book can be a bit thin.

"Only pray not in thy sorrow to Lipang-Tung, for he saith of sorrow: 'It may be very clever of the gods, but he doth not understand.'" So many like this. It's hard to choose just one quote.

[b · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d probably take this over the Silmarillion any day (a bit less racist, a bit less Bible-bearing), but as many other reviewers note, part of Dunsany’s charm is not just in his vast mythopoesis but also in his more mundane tellings. You can see the germs of that spacefaring bend that C.A.S. is so good at in here. You can also see a keen ecologically attuned mind, which isn’t unique to Dunsany but is well-executed, and germane to a lot of writing now (I wish some of the eco-catastrophic caterwauling was as clever as “I laughed at a felled tree and then it pursued me in an ‘It Follows’ fashion” that LD gives us here), whether it’s the kind of melodramatic and anthropocentric “our Martian kin were outpaced, how horrible would it be if WE weren’t the top of our own food chain” tales or the ones wherein a dog learns enough tricks that it may as well be human—and better at it than us, to boot! So so so glad I read this. Going deep into early fantasy helps me better appreciate the rather diluted and narrative-focused contemporary works (most of them that are popular are YA no less), to cherish both what was and what will come; Mat Laporte, author of one of my fav books ever (RATS NEST), talks about how Capital G Genre helps us constellate things in our universe that simply cannot be reduced (and perhaps should not be demystified), and I think that Dunsany, though his endings are often a bit glib and redundant, embodies that spirit, that total investment in genre that makes it so relevant to our world and so rich for us to reflect upon. If you’re into big deep lore (and wanna see part of what Tolkien ripped off lmao), into clever little tales, into allegory, into fantasy at all, this is for you.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always thought I liked Lord Dunsany, but I think I actually just like The Gods of Pegāna.

[Murray Ewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like classic fantasy, you’re bound to come across Lord Dunsany at some point. Ursula Le Guin called him the "most imitated, and the most inimitable” writer of fantasy, though nowadays that title would probably go to George R R Martin. Dunsany is almost Martin’s opposite. He wrote mostly short stories, and the ones he’s most famous for are very light on characterisation, but heavy on fantastic sights and magical wonder, written in a deliberately archaic, poetic prose style. But these stories aren’t the only sort he wrote. In the Land of Time collects a sampling from throughout his highly prolific output, and show how his writing changed over time.

Starting with the entirety of his first published book, The Gods of Pegana, a satire on religion written as though it were itself a religious text, this is the mythology of a series of gods Dunsany invented, whose main occupation seems to be laughing at their creation Man, while being frightened of waking the god who created them, MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, who will wipe them all out and start again as soon as he stops dreaming. Then come the tales for which lovers of classic fantasy will know Dunsany: “The Sword of Welleran” and “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth”, heroic tales of proto-sword-and-sorcery, told in a highly poetic style.

After this, Dunsany’s writing seems to have become a slow disownment of fantasy. His next tales — the ones that most influenced Lovecraft — are about a dreamer, who visits fantastic places, but doesn’t actually do much other than witness wonders. Then there are little comic fables, mostly about ‘small men’ — shop-workers and clerks — whose encounter with fantastic things prove too much for their sense of reality, and usually end up in the madhouse. Then, a further descent, into the Jorkens tales. Jorkens tells of fantastic things he’s witnessed, but only ever under the influence of alcohol. Dunsany’s attitude to fantasy has become lightly mocking, though the Jorkens tales are among his best examples of pure storytelling. The book rounds out with a few miscellaneous tales, including non-fantasy crime (“Two Bottles of Relish”) and a boyhood tale of toy boat piracy, “The Pirate of the Round Pond”.

For me, Dunsany’s best were his earlier fantastic tales, though they are a rich diet, and perhaps not to be read in bulk. His novel, The King of Elfland’s Daughter is perhaps his best single work.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's no arguing the lucid beauty of Dunsany's prose, or his facility at fairy-tale-like extended metaphor. There may be some argument over just how much of that kind of thing one reader can stand when it's unsupported by the forward motion of plot, but that's a personal issue for each of us to decide. My taste for purely aesthetic pieces is somewhat limited, so my mileage In the Land of Time varied.

Dunsany's influence on some of Lovecraft's work, particularly fantastical pieces like "The White Ship" is clear - it just happens that "The White Ship" isn't anywhere close to my favorite Lovecraft. Happily, there is a fair spread of pieces contained in this collection, which run the gamut from Entirely Ornamental ("The Gods of Pegana") to Tightly Plotted Treats ("The Two Bottles of Relish"). Given that S.T. Joshi is the editor, there is naturally a section dedicated to Dunsany's Prose Poems (disclaimer: Joshi adores prose poems; I loathe them), but there are also treats like "The Ghosts," in which the narrator uses geometry to rationalize himself out of a haunting, and a fun selection of tales featuring the drunken liar, Jorkens. Of the more metaphorical pieces, I enjoyed implicit heresy of "The Exiles Club" and the futility of the battle joined "In the Land of Time."

Of the Lovecraft-adjacent work I've read - Blackwood, Machen, Ashton Smith - Dunsany is easily the most gorgeous writer, but that loveliness is too frequently static, as if holding a pose waiting for me to admire it. So while I offer Dunsany my admiration for his style, I'll likely turn my attention to something with a little more verve.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just occasionally, in this collection of short stories, sketches, and wisps of ideas, some themed and some random, I got it. I became part of the cult. Just occasionally, I was swept up in Dunsanay's amazing ability to describe the countryside in terms so lyrical that they seem otherworldly and evocative of a place that humans can only dream about visiting. Just occasionally, I was transported to an imaginary world that seemed infinitely preferable to this one, even with the requisite dangers of fantasy worlds, like magical villains, monstrous beasties, and things that grab you in the dark.

But most of the time, I was stuck on his silly place names, his weak plotting, and his Victorian ideas of adventure. I'm sorry, you just can't get to Mars in a month, conserving your fuel, only to find a wise race of humans and a temperate climate. Can't be done. Jules Verne was better with the science he had, and J. R. R. Tolkien was infinitely better imagining a world. Still, the countryside does sound amazing, and it leads me to believe that there was something in that world that we've lost forever, thanks to industrialization. So I do have Dunsanay to thank for that.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both a hit-and-miss collection (though luckily more of the former and less of the latter), and while Dunsany's style can take awhile to become accustomed to, when he's at the top of his game his prose can be a thing of beauty. I especially liked the stories "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth," "Blagdaross," "The Bride of the Man-Horse," "Two Bottles of Relish," "The Cut," and "The Development of the Rillswood Estate." Some of the prose poems collected here are quite exquisite as well.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The man INVENTED inventing myths and pantheons for the poetry of it.

[Tulpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

a star docked because ST Joshi's choices as an editor are questionable at best. The stories gradually decline in quality as they go later in the career. The Jorkens tales, while still pleasantly written, put Dunsany's aristocratic, elitist, and (mildly, especially by the standards of early 20th century UK) racist qualities into stark relief.

If you pick up this collection, skip the introduction and read up through Thirteen at Table. Then, go track down the early comedic fantasy stories that Joshi excluded because he thought they were "too ironic" or something.

Terrible editor, great collection of stories in the first two thirds. Though it excludes many greats to make room for mediocre "Jorkens" stories and the true low point: "The Cut," a xenophobic parable about 'lesser races' knowing their place. A repulsive story written by an old has-been, diametrically opposed to the splendour of those early works.

(I'm complaining about the xenophobia but it is still far more mild than the outrageous bigotry of contemporaries like Agatha Christie who are still celebrated today)

EDIT: You might be wondering why I gave such a high rating if my review was mostly critical. It is purely on the strength of that first half. All the immaculate prose and imagery of those early fantasy stories obliterates my memories of the mediocrity he became.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a bit bewildered at the difference in quality between most of these stories and something like The King of Elfland's Daughter, in all honesty. Most stories in this book are rather listless, more stray thoughts and travel stream-of-consciousness than anything else. They don't feature strong characters, powerful settings, and only rarely do they recount anything memorable. They are all "fantasy," sure, but only in the most milquetoast sense: cities on the moor that disappear, strange windows into other times, legendary blades. Of course, these stories represent an important milestone on the way to later fantasy literature, but most of them don't hold up to those same later writings. The ones that do are excellent, but they are buried beneath mounds of (frankly) underdeveloped story-imaginings. Pegāna is otherworldly and mystifying, and we clearly sense how it spawned the great fascination with mythopoeia among later writers like Lovecraft and Tolkien. These are worth a read, both because they are lovely and because they are seminal. Other stories that still reach out from over a century ago: Idle Days on the Yann, The Relenting of Sarnidac (my personal favorite), and many of his prose poems.

[Steven D'Adamo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I largely enjoyed this collection of Dunsany's work, and I mostly listened to it in small bites, trying to take it one or two stories at a time. I found the narration a little dry, and this may have affected my overall enjoyment. Still, I think it's worth picking up a hard copy of this collection to read again in my own voice, if only to better understand Dunsany's style.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

★★★★★ — 4.999/5

As a child, I enjoyed this book. Perhaps it was the start of my terror filled desires. That sweat that comes from a fear you don't understand. As my mind was to young to understand Lord Dunsany's writing style. Often characterized as lyrical, ornate prose - often described as dreamlike and poetic, combined with a sense of melancholy and a focus on invented mythologies. His stories often feature brief, impactful narratives and a unique voice that draws heavily on biblical language and epic poetry.

I didn’t get it, not really. But I didn’t have to. It glittered like some arcane relic pulled from the back of an old bookshelf in a library I wasn’t supposed to be in. Dunsany didn’t write at me. He wrote beyond me—so far beyond, it somehow wrapped around and hit me right in the gut, even if I couldn’t say why.

Now, as an adult, I understand. And somehow, that understanding has made the book darker. Deeper. Lonelier.

Like if Lovecraft had met Ron Howard, and instead of shooting a movie, they just sat on the edge of the world and stared into the abyss, whispering bedtime stories to one another while the stars listened in. Dunsany had that rare talent—not just to imagine gods, but to write like he’d met them, and wasn’t particularly impressed.

“For the honour of the gods is a thing no longer remembered by any save the gods themselves.” – The Gods of Pegāna

That’s not a fantasy line. That’s a eulogy. For belief. For myth. For meaning. Dunsany’s worlds aren’t just dreamscapes; they’re graveyards for forgotten gods, where the wind itself sounds suspiciously like regret.

A Little History (and Why It Matters)
Edward Plunkett, the 18th Baron of Dunsany—yes, a baron; you don’t get a name like that without owning some crumbling tower and a crest with a lion or two—wrote most of these tales in the early 1900s. The world was modernizing. Industry clanked. Empires creaked. The divine silence of the stars was being replaced with the noise of machines and certainty.

So what did Dunsany do? He dove backwards. Not in ignorance, but in defiance. He constructed mythologies like a man trying to remind the universe that mystery still existed, even if it now had a telephone. He didn’t just invent worlds—he whispered to the parts of your mind that remember things your conscious self has never lived.

“Then did the prophet speak, as all men must speak who have seen things that men may not see.” – The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth

His stories move like scripture filtered through opium. That old high fantasy rhythm—where names like “Mung,” “Krothering,” and “Slid” seem both holy and ridiculous—was deliberate. Dunsany’s prose is ornamental, musical, sometimes absurd, but always sincere. He doesn’t wink at you. He dares you to believe him, even as your rational brain shouts over your shoulder that none of this makes sense.

And that’s the point. Dunsany wasn’t writing to explain the world. He was writing to unmoor you from it.

The Darkness Between the Lines
Unlike Tolkien, who built moral universes of good and evil, Dunsany dealt in something murkier. His gods are cruel, bored, or absent. His heroes often die. His landscapes shimmer with dream logic, and his endings feel like the last breath of a fever dream.

And yet—they’re funny. Not ha-ha funny, but darkly, absurdly comic. In Idle Days on the Yann, the narrator boards a boat that may as well be ferrying him into mythic oblivion. Everything is symbolic. Nothing is real. You read it like an old sailor’s tale, if the sailor was also an existentialist and maybe high on laudanum.

The genius of Dunsany is that he writes with a kind of cosmic irony—he’s not laughing at his characters, but he knows they’re doomed, and he lets them walk into that doom with their heads held high.

As a child, I loved the dreams. As an adult, I see the traps.

“And the worlds slipped down the streams of the Years to the Deep, and never returned.” – Time and the Gods

That's not just poetic. That’s terrifying. It’s the kind of line that makes you put the book down and stare into your coffee like it just said something upsetting about your childhood.

A Comedian’s Timing in a Philosopher’s Cloak
And if Norm Macdonald had been a fantasy writer, this might’ve been the kind of thing he wrote. That same haunting joke-telling that’s not really about jokes at all. There’s a rhythm to Dunsany’s stories, the same way Norm would drag a moth joke across six minutes and then drop a grenade of a punchline that leaves you stunned—not from laughter, but from the silence that followed.

That’s what In the Land of Time offers: not answers, not adventure, not even comfort—but awe. And awe, let’s be honest, is scary. It’s what we feel when we realize we’re small and the gods might not be listening. Or worse—they are, and they don’t care.

So no, this isn’t a book for everyone. It isn’t even a book for me all the time. But when I need to remember what it feels like to believe in something I can’t understand—really believe, like a child looking at a thunderstorm and thinking maybe a god is up there smashing dishes—I come back to Dunsany.

As a child, I enjoyed it.

As an adult, I understand.

And now, I’m terrified.

[KC Cui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven collection bc his fantasy is so so good but there’s a lot of non fantasy in here. I would say the other collection I’ve read from him, Over the hills and far away, was better

[Zina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, whimsical little tales. Taking you to land of pure imagination. Highly recommend to all lovers of fantasy.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m so glad I stuck this one out. The earlier sections (Pegāna and Environs, and Tales of Wonder) were interesting conceptually, but they were so focused on world building that the plot and character development were really lacking. I was intrigued enough to stick with it, but I wasn’t as engaged as I wanted to be. It wasn’t until the later sections of the collection that I really started to enjoy it. The stories in these sections involved less elaborate world building, and therefore had more space to explore unique ideas and develop plots. A lot of them also struck a perfect balance between cozy atmosphere, and dry, at times dark, humour.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A representative collection of short stories by Lord Dunsany, a sampling from across his lifetime. The earlier stories, especially, are imaginative fantasy, stories of gods and heroes, some sword and sorcery, set in dream worlds. Later in life, judging by the stories in this collection, he wrote stories a bit more down to earth though still unique in situation. One section of the book is a selection revolving around a fictional storyteller named Joseph Jorkens who regales his listeners at a local English pub with his stories of fantastic adventures, some set in Africa, but also a story of how a friend of his flew to Mars and barely escaped with his life after encountering a menacing race of Martians. As has been pointed out by others, Dunsany was an influence on other fantasy writers like Lovecraft and Tolkien.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wanted to like this a lot more than i did. reading dream quest of unknown kadath by lovecraft is evoking dunsany's style very strongly. again, i remember feeling like i was reading a travelogue. it is interesting to me that the debt to dunsany and george macdonald, another fantasy genre precursor, really does seem to be the elements of the fantasy they write about, rather than the style.

[Rhomboid Goatcabin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of uniquely inventive and fantastic tales. Spearheading the fantasy and horror genres, not least through his influence on Tolkien and Lovecraft, respectively, and once considered quite canonical, Dunsany's works have unfortunately fallen somewhat out of favor in recent decades. Highly recommended to, frankly, the entire reading public.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of some of Lord Dunsany's best short stories. Tales from Pagana, to Dunsany's fantasy to Jorkens are included in this book. It is an excellent and rather large collection of stories unlike any you've read before.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will review at www.fantasyliterature.com.