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Gods, Men and Ghosts: The Best Supernatural Fiction of Lord Dunsany
Irish writer Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, ranks among the twentieth century's great masters of supernatural and science fiction. An outstanding dramatist whose supernatural plays anticipated the theater of the absurd, Dunsany was also a virtuoso writer of short stories and essays. This selection presents the finest of his works, gathered from long-out-of-print sources. Contents include the famous "Three Sailors' Gambit," possibly the best chess story ever written; the remarkable trilogy about Nuth and the Gnoles, Thangobrind the Jeweller, and the Gibbelins; exploits of the Gods, including both "The Gods of Pengana" and adventures from other books; and favorite adventures of Jorkens, prince of liars. Dunsany's spellbinding tales are complemented by the remarkable visions of Sidney H. Sime, whose delicate illustrations form an indispensable complement to the stories.
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 1971
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About the author
Lord Dunsany
687 books847 followersEdward 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.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 23, 2025
The rating is only for the story "The Bureau d'Exchange de Maux" which read in the anthology Black Water I for the Short Story Club. Oh well, the group is already reading the 2nd volume but I have some catching up to do.
Lord Dunsany was a baron who wrote fantasy, mostly short stories. The Bureau d'Exchange is about a shop where willing customers changed fears. Fear of heights over fear of boats and so on. Quite na original idea.
Lord Dunsany was a baron who wrote fantasy, mostly short stories. The Bureau d'Exchange is about a shop where willing customers changed fears. Fear of heights over fear of boats and so on. Quite na original idea.
November 12, 2024
When I started my new job, I was asked to answer any three of a dozen questions for an item introducing me. One was “What is your greatest fear?”. I said I’d read 1984 and enough other dystopias to beware of divulging that.
The Bureau d'échange de Maux is a short story that opens with recollections of the “wondrously evil old man” in a small, quirky building in a Parisian side street. He and it are immediately enticing and repellant; the reader is drawn into the narrator’s curiosity - and compulsion.
“You paid twenty francs… for admission to the bureau and then had the right to exchange any evil or misfortune with anyone on the premises for some evil or misfortune that he ‘could afford’.”
A capitalist spin on Faust, with seductive atmospherics.
Some startling exchanges are made in “the dingy ends of that low-ceilinged room”, including wisdom for folly and death for life.
The narrator is, of course, tempted to try a trade, but he’s also cautious.
“Man has never yet benefited by the marvellous and that the more miraculous his advantage appears to be the more securely and tightly do the gods or the witches catch him.”
Read the story (link below) to see how what he does relates to my opening paragraph.
Image: Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill, by Pieter Claes (Source)
Quotes
• “Its doorway made of three brown beams of wood, the top one overlapping the others like the Greek letter pi, all the rest painted green, a house far lower and narrower than its neighbours and infinitely stranger.”
• “A man's own evil is to him the worst thing there is or ever could be, and that an evil so unbalances all men's minds that they always seek for extremes in that small grim shop.”
See also
• My only other encounter with Lord Dunsany’s work was more than a decade ago, when I read his YA (not that it was described as such back then) novella, The King of Elfland’s Daughter. I found the purple prose a bit much and wrote that “I prefer things a little darker”: see my review HERE. This shorter story certainly delivers that, which is amusing, because I also wrote of Elfland that “the moral is perhaps ‘Be careful what you wish for’”. Well, I got what I wished for - and am glad of it - though the narrator of this story is more equivocal.
• A strict translation of “maux” is “ailments”, but here, it’s explicitly about “evil” from the start.
• This was published in 1916 and features a single, but strongly anti-Semitic analogy.
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
You can read this story HERE.
You can join the group here.
The Bureau d'échange de Maux is a short story that opens with recollections of the “wondrously evil old man” in a small, quirky building in a Parisian side street. He and it are immediately enticing and repellant; the reader is drawn into the narrator’s curiosity - and compulsion.
“You paid twenty francs… for admission to the bureau and then had the right to exchange any evil or misfortune with anyone on the premises for some evil or misfortune that he ‘could afford’.”
A capitalist spin on Faust, with seductive atmospherics.
Some startling exchanges are made in “the dingy ends of that low-ceilinged room”, including wisdom for folly and death for life.
The narrator is, of course, tempted to try a trade, but he’s also cautious.
“Man has never yet benefited by the marvellous and that the more miraculous his advantage appears to be the more securely and tightly do the gods or the witches catch him.”
Read the story (link below) to see how what he does relates to my opening paragraph.
Image: Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill, by Pieter Claes (Source)
Quotes
• “Its doorway made of three brown beams of wood, the top one overlapping the others like the Greek letter pi, all the rest painted green, a house far lower and narrower than its neighbours and infinitely stranger.”
• “A man's own evil is to him the worst thing there is or ever could be, and that an evil so unbalances all men's minds that they always seek for extremes in that small grim shop.”
See also
• My only other encounter with Lord Dunsany’s work was more than a decade ago, when I read his YA (not that it was described as such back then) novella, The King of Elfland’s Daughter. I found the purple prose a bit much and wrote that “I prefer things a little darker”: see my review HERE. This shorter story certainly delivers that, which is amusing, because I also wrote of Elfland that “the moral is perhaps ‘Be careful what you wish for’”. Well, I got what I wished for - and am glad of it - though the narrator of this story is more equivocal.
• A strict translation of “maux” is “ailments”, but here, it’s explicitly about “evil” from the start.
• This was published in 1916 and features a single, but strongly anti-Semitic analogy.
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
You can read this story HERE.
You can join the group here.
November 11, 2024
I read the story "The Bureau d'Exchange de Maux" from this collection with the Short Story Club. It's in the anthology "Black Water."
There is a small store in Paris where people can exchange their ailments, fears, or terrible situations with another client. The evil man at the exchange matches the clients and does the transaction for a price. It was often an exchange of opposites. For example, a childless woman had exchanged with an impoverished one with twelve children. But you can never back out of the transaction if you find it doesn't suit you. The storekeeper seemed to be some version of the Devil, and we can guess how any pact with the Devil will go.
It was a cool story that had me thinking about what I would exchange in my own life--but fearing the unknown more.
There is a small store in Paris where people can exchange their ailments, fears, or terrible situations with another client. The evil man at the exchange matches the clients and does the transaction for a price. It was often an exchange of opposites. For example, a childless woman had exchanged with an impoverished one with twelve children. But you can never back out of the transaction if you find it doesn't suit you. The storekeeper seemed to be some version of the Devil, and we can guess how any pact with the Devil will go.
It was a cool story that had me thinking about what I would exchange in my own life--but fearing the unknown more.
November 13, 2024
"The Bureau d'Echange de Maux" is a supernatural short story, a fable about curiosity and hubris, a fantastic exploration of the notion "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence." Our narrator discovers the shop of the title in an alley in Paris, and learns that one is able to exchange an evil of one's own for a comparable "commodity" from another.
A marketplace for evil, for worries and phobias, for nagging concerns and lost hopes. One customer exchanged wisdom for folly — he left happy.
As in fairy tales of this general type: things don't quite turn out quite as the narrator expected.
A marketplace for evil, for worries and phobias, for nagging concerns and lost hopes. One customer exchanged wisdom for folly — he left happy.
As in fairy tales of this general type: things don't quite turn out quite as the narrator expected.
November 15, 2024
“The Bureau d’Echange de Maux”
My first Lord Dunsany, which is odd so late in the game since so much of what I read has been influenced by the man…a quick peek at Wikipedia listing the authors Dunsany has influenced mentions Tolkien, Gaiman, Lovecraft, Borges, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard, and Arthur C. Clarke, among many others. Even Guillermo del Toro makes the list.
Nonetheless, despite some evocative description, I did not find much of interest in this tale, which describes a shabby supernatural shop where the dissatisfied (or merely curious, in the case of our protagonist) can make a deal to exchange a personal ill with that of another unhappy customer. As you might guess, these transactions rarely turn out well, but Dunsany’s story is over and done with much too quickly for my own satisfaction.
I’m also reminded of that high school chestnut “The Chaser,” by John Collier, which must be influenced in part by this tale. Collier’s story is also set in a shabby supernatural shop and involves a Mephistophelian transaction with a shady individual who must be more than he seems, although unlike in “The Bureau” this shop will be open and ready for business when the customer makes his return visit.
I hope to read more by Dunsany before I am done.
++++++++++++++++
Read for my GoodReads short story group
My first Lord Dunsany, which is odd so late in the game since so much of what I read has been influenced by the man…a quick peek at Wikipedia listing the authors Dunsany has influenced mentions Tolkien, Gaiman, Lovecraft, Borges, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard, and Arthur C. Clarke, among many others. Even Guillermo del Toro makes the list.
Nonetheless, despite some evocative description, I did not find much of interest in this tale, which describes a shabby supernatural shop where the dissatisfied (or merely curious, in the case of our protagonist) can make a deal to exchange a personal ill with that of another unhappy customer. As you might guess, these transactions rarely turn out well, but Dunsany’s story is over and done with much too quickly for my own satisfaction.
I’m also reminded of that high school chestnut “The Chaser,” by John Collier, which must be influenced in part by this tale. Collier’s story is also set in a shabby supernatural shop and involves a Mephistophelian transaction with a shady individual who must be more than he seems, although unlike in “The Bureau” this shop will be open and ready for business when the customer makes his return visit.
I hope to read more by Dunsany before I am done.
++++++++++++++++
Read for my GoodReads short story group
July 11, 2023
An excellent sampling of Lord Dunsany's writing. I have always loved the Jorgens stories, of the tall tales told in taverns genre. I also really liked the first section of stories which I found more accessible than the Gods section or the second section. I tend to like the more concretely written stories than those which use a more drifting style which evokes far away tales of old. However, even those have some stories I love, like the wonderful Chu-Bu and Sheepish. Either way, you get a good look at some of Dunsany's best fantasy.
May 29, 2015
I had this book in my home as a child, but I had to read some other stuff first to truly appreciate it. HP Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Jack Vance's Eyes of the Overworld, I reread The Hobbit as an adult and fell in love again, and then I understood a predecessor to them all, Lord Dunsany. High fantasy masquerading as a penny dreadful, a self-referential proto-Vance with the wit and narrative speed of PG Wodehouse. Not flowery, not sparse, always just right. The subject matter ranges from burglars vs. gnoles to the dangers of keeping too many idols to barbarian adventure in the vein of Howard to the Romantic epic- but the knight fights with a sword fashioned from the dragon itself, sharpened with one eye and the other set in the hilt to watch out for the bearer. Lord Dunsany is an author's author, which is to say old and mostly forgotten.
May 16, 2017
I found this collection unbalanced but still rather delightful. Many of Dunsany's short fantasy pieces suffer from the short story format itself. His enormous affection for bestowing fanciful names upon men, monsters, and places means that the stories don't have the universality of classic fairy tales, but due to their short length they also can't luxuriate in Tolkien-esque world-building.
The high points of the collection are well worth these annoyances, though. The 'Jorkens' series, its title character a 19th century English club bore full of stories about stumbling through encounters with the occult, is a pleasure. Dunsany's god cycle is properly mythic, with 'Concerning Sith - The Destroyer of Hours' being a particular favorite of mine.
The high points of the collection are well worth these annoyances, though. The 'Jorkens' series, its title character a 19th century English club bore full of stories about stumbling through encounters with the occult, is a pleasure. Dunsany's god cycle is properly mythic, with 'Concerning Sith - The Destroyer of Hours' being a particular favorite of mine.
March 24, 2017
This is a wonderful collection of fantasitc and supernatural stories from the 18th irish baron Edward Plunkett aka "Lord Dunsany". He may be forgotten today( not quite). He influenced writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Rober E. Howard. This compilation consists of his Heroic Fantasy, Weird, Supernatural horror and dreamland stories and are a fun re-read and appreciation of the authors I enjoy reading today. Illustrated by Sidney Sime's orginal plates and reproduced for this publication Edited E.F Bleiler, Dover
October 31, 2011
While the haunting illustrations by Sime would alone give this volume a five star rating, the selection of Dunsany stories contained therein doubles that merit. This book is composed of a broad cross section of Dunsany's works, with each period being represented by several tales. This is perfect for an introduction to a man whose work spans everything from weird fiction, mythopoeia, and adventure.
November 29, 2020
Forse non ero pronto, ma è stato abbastanza pesante.
Un'importante informazione: la maggioranza degli scritti non sono fantastici, sono fantasy, che è un'altra cosa.
Ci sono comunque dei bei racconti come "Il Bureau d'Echange de Maux" o " I fantasmi" che sembrano davvero usciti fuori dalla penna di un Gautier o Maupassant, ma il resto è un territorio ancora inesplorato per me (e a cui sinceramente, ora come ora, non mi voglio avvicinare).
Probabilmente chi ha letto anche solo un racconto di quest'autore sapeva già a cosa si andava incontro con questa antologia ma io, che l'ho sentito citato in qualsiasi antologia fantastica, non mi aspettavo una tale sorpresa che, a lungo andare (i racconti sono tanti!), mi è stata sgradita.
Un'importante informazione: la maggioranza degli scritti non sono fantastici, sono fantasy, che è un'altra cosa.
Ci sono comunque dei bei racconti come "Il Bureau d'Echange de Maux" o " I fantasmi" che sembrano davvero usciti fuori dalla penna di un Gautier o Maupassant, ma il resto è un territorio ancora inesplorato per me (e a cui sinceramente, ora come ora, non mi voglio avvicinare).
Probabilmente chi ha letto anche solo un racconto di quest'autore sapeva già a cosa si andava incontro con questa antologia ma io, che l'ho sentito citato in qualsiasi antologia fantastica, non mi aspettavo una tale sorpresa che, a lungo andare (i racconti sono tanti!), mi è stata sgradita.
August 7, 2023
Lord Dunsany’s Gods, Men and Ghosts is a largely good, but uneven collection of his short stories.
Dunsany’s imagination is visibly immense and awesome. A common thread across the stories is what we see in our dreams and imaginations.
The length of the short stories is varied and I believe the stories and the collection suffers because of this.
Split into multiple sections, I enjoyed the Jorkens stories the most - a blowhard narrating tales in a tavern about his bumbling encounters with the occult and mysterious. I can see how it influenced Clarke’s Tales of the White Hart and other authors as well.
The turn-of-the-century English is charming and a bit tedious in equal measure.
All in all, a collection that showcases Lord Dunsany’s fertile imagination.
Dunsany’s imagination is visibly immense and awesome. A common thread across the stories is what we see in our dreams and imaginations.
The length of the short stories is varied and I believe the stories and the collection suffers because of this.
Split into multiple sections, I enjoyed the Jorkens stories the most - a blowhard narrating tales in a tavern about his bumbling encounters with the occult and mysterious. I can see how it influenced Clarke’s Tales of the White Hart and other authors as well.
The turn-of-the-century English is charming and a bit tedious in equal measure.
All in all, a collection that showcases Lord Dunsany’s fertile imagination.
December 10, 2020
As Michael Dirda once wrote, "What I wouldn’t give to be 14 years old again, on Christmas break from school, and reading, for the first time, GODS, MEN AND GHOSTS, Bleiler’s selection from Lord Dunsany’s gorgeously written and clever fantasies." This is a lovingly curated, endlessly fascinating little collection of the master fantasist's works, covering the range of his talents, from adventure to Gothic, fairy tale to myth: an absolutely perfect book.
June 28, 2016
Es asombroso como, después de tantos años de haber sido creadas, las historias de Lord Dunsany siguen tan vivas y sorprendentes como en su nacimiento. Este libro es una recopilación de sus mejores historias dividida en cuatro ejes temáticos; hombres, héroes y maravillas, Jorkens y dioses, así que abarca varios ejemplos de su obra. De este modo es muy fácil analizarlas temáticamente, ya que en algunas de ellas es más evidente su gran imaginación que en otras, rozando altas cotas dentro de lo fantástico y que fácilmente se pueden ligar a Lovecraft, su alumno más avanzado. Otro punto a considerar es el excelente dominio narrativo que tenía, patente en historias como "Una historia de tierra y mar", que es uno de los relatos más emocionantes que he leído en mi vida y donde las cualidades narrativas de Dunsany están en un punto máximo.
Como fan de Lovecraft, desde luego que uno de los motivos por los cuales lo leí fue para tratar de encontrar esos relatos que tanto influenciaron al genio de Providence, y no he salido decepcionado. Desde menciones a las "Montañas de la locura", paseos por esos reinos oníricos de los que Lovecraft se apropió, antecedentes de la nomenclatura empleada posteriormente por los adeptos del Círculo Lovecraftiano, etcétera. Desde luego que no se puede decir que exista en el libro algún trazo de "horror cósmico", sin embargo este está muy patente, sobre todo en los relatos de la última sección.
¡Imperdible!
Como fan de Lovecraft, desde luego que uno de los motivos por los cuales lo leí fue para tratar de encontrar esos relatos que tanto influenciaron al genio de Providence, y no he salido decepcionado. Desde menciones a las "Montañas de la locura", paseos por esos reinos oníricos de los que Lovecraft se apropió, antecedentes de la nomenclatura empleada posteriormente por los adeptos del Círculo Lovecraftiano, etcétera. Desde luego que no se puede decir que exista en el libro algún trazo de "horror cósmico", sin embargo este está muy patente, sobre todo en los relatos de la última sección.
¡Imperdible!
April 20, 2020
I loved this, am gutted that it's finished and am very reluctant to give it back to the generous friend who sent it my way. I suppose The L.D. means I've got the loan a little longer. Anyway, these are short stories, mostly fantastical adventure stories inspired in great part by the author's travels and his evident interest in religion and mysticism. It's not all five star stuff, but the bulk of it is great, often hilarious; several pieces are really top notch. There are one or two shorts that were a bit tricky to get through though - even a bit boring at times. I found some parts of the Gods section a little more tiresome than the rest. I don't know which story was my favourite, but there's one about a pirate who sails his ship into the Sahara desert which I can't imagine every forgetting; much of it reminded me of Italo Calvino. The Jorkins collection is hilarious; are there others? I need to seek out more Lord Dunsany. I'm amazed he isn't better known. I'd never heard of him before. Have you? Makes one wonder what other gems are lying around in friends' houses.
January 1, 2008
Anyone who is a fan of modern fantasy, or even of not-so-modern fantasy, would do well to look into reading some of Lord Dunsany's work. I have seen him compared to Terry Pratchett, and while he doesn't go in for quite the same sort of obvious humor that Pratchett does, I think it's a fair comparison. I am reminded, too, of some of Fritz Leiber's work, particularly with stories like "The Sword of Welleran", or "Chu-bu and Sheemish". Read it.
November 10, 2009
Brilliant stories of fantasy and the supernatural. I suspect Philip Pullman got the idea of his characters having souls in the shapes of animals that follow them about, in his Dark Materials novels, from the story The Ghosts in this collection. Dunsany was one of the great masters of the form.
January 5, 2013
The short stories are bizarre and well done but the turn of the century style of writing is a little hard to overcome. The gods section was less than what I expected.
January 10, 2024
“Боги Пеґани”, “Боги і час” Дві міфотворчі збірки Лорда Дансейні, котрі я прочитав нещодавно і сам не розумію, як обходився без цього автора стільки часу. Друга вдала спроба після Блейка, створити унікальний пантеон богів, котрий своїм багатством та унікальністю не гірший від грецького чи індійського. Магічно-філософські історії-притчі що за стилем нагадують Біблійний Старий заповіт і щось суто Дансейнівське – епічне і водночас трікстерське. Цей світ створений у сні Мана Юд Сушая, він має свою трійцю : Кіба, Мунґа і Сіша. Є тут свій Вселенський Потоп і бог усіх вод Слід, є малі домашні боги, і собаки часу, Йохарнет Лехей – бог снів, а Лімпанґ-Танґ бог радості і музики. Це світ в котрий хочеться повертатися знову і знову, його обожнював Борхес з Лавкрафтом і його щиро полюбив я.
Read
November 10, 2024*only story: The Bureau d'Echange de Maux
November 13, 2024
Read The Bureau d'Echange de.Maux. Short . Effective . The antisemitism is obvious and of it's times.
October 27, 2025
I had a very old copy of his short stories, including Autumn Cricket. Teenage me liked his writing.
Want to read
December 25, 2024Read so far:
*The three sailors' gambit
*The three infernal jokes
*The exiles' club
*Thirteen at table
*The wonderful window
*The Bureau d'Echange de Maux (aka The shop that exchanged evils)
The ghosts --2
The probable adventure of the three literary men
The coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap
Poor old Bill
The hoard of the gibbelins --2
How Nuth would have practised his art upon the Gnoles
Chu-bu and Sheemish
*A story of land and sea
*The distressing tale of Thangobrind the jeweller, and of the doom that befell him
*The sword of Welleran
*The fortress unvanquishable, save for Sacnoth
The injudicious prayers of Pombo the idolator
How Plash-Goo came to the land of none's desire
*Bethmoora
Idle days on the Yann --2
*The hashish man
A narrow escape
The sign
The Neapolitan ice
Jorkens consults a prophet
The walk to Lingham
*How Ryan got out of Russia
A mystery of the East
The gods of Pegana
Time and the gods
The coming of the sea
The secret of the gods
In the land of time
***
*The kith of the elk folk
*The Widow Flynn's apple tree
*The bride of the man-horse
Where the tides ebb and flow --2
A daughter of Rameses --2
*Our distant cousins
*A large diamond
*Autumn cricket
*Witch wood
*The punishment
*In a dim room
*The strange drug of Dr. Caber
*The electric king
*How Jembu played for Cambridge
*Mrs. Mulger
The true story of the tortoise and the hare --3
*The three sailors' gambit
*The three infernal jokes
*The exiles' club
*Thirteen at table
*The wonderful window
*The Bureau d'Echange de Maux (aka The shop that exchanged evils)
The ghosts --2
The probable adventure of the three literary men
The coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap
Poor old Bill
The hoard of the gibbelins --2
How Nuth would have practised his art upon the Gnoles
Chu-bu and Sheemish
*A story of land and sea
*The distressing tale of Thangobrind the jeweller, and of the doom that befell him
*The sword of Welleran
*The fortress unvanquishable, save for Sacnoth
The injudicious prayers of Pombo the idolator
How Plash-Goo came to the land of none's desire
*Bethmoora
Idle days on the Yann --2
*The hashish man
A narrow escape
The sign
The Neapolitan ice
Jorkens consults a prophet
The walk to Lingham
*How Ryan got out of Russia
A mystery of the East
The gods of Pegana
Time and the gods
The coming of the sea
The secret of the gods
In the land of time
***
*The kith of the elk folk
*The Widow Flynn's apple tree
*The bride of the man-horse
Where the tides ebb and flow --2
A daughter of Rameses --2
*Our distant cousins
*A large diamond
*Autumn cricket
*Witch wood
*The punishment
*In a dim room
*The strange drug of Dr. Caber
*The electric king
*How Jembu played for Cambridge
*Mrs. Mulger
The true story of the tortoise and the hare --3
December 12, 2015
The Jorkens stories and those from the books of wonder were the best. I was let down by the final section of stories about the gods.
May 11, 2023
Read:
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth - 1/5
The Three Sailors' Gambit - Jul 22. 3/5.
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth - 1/5
The Three Sailors' Gambit - Jul 22. 3/5.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews