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    The Great Book of Wonder: 10 Classic Short Story Collections
    The Great Book of Wonder: 10 Classic Short Story Collections
    The Great Book of Wonder: 10 Classic Short Story Collections
    Ebook424 pages17 hours

    The Great Book of Wonder: 10 Classic Short Story Collections

    By Lord Dunsany

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    About this ebook

    NOTE: THIS COLLECTION HAS BEEN REVISED AND EXPANDED AS FOLLOWS:


    -- In March 2016, we added 2 more short story collections!

    -- In April 2016, we added 7 uncollected short stories!

    -- Includes an interactive table of contents.

    -- Includes an introduction to "Tales of War" by Dunsany scholar Darrell Schweitzer.


    This mammoth volume of Lord Dunsany's classic short fiction assembles no less than 10 collections into one ebook! Here are:


    8 collections of fantasies:


    - THE GODS OF PEGANA

    - TIME AND THE GODS

    - THE SWORD OF WELLERAN

    - A DREAMER'S TALES

    - THE BOOK OF WONDER

    - FIFTY-ONE TALES

    - THE LAST BOOK OF WONDER

    - TALES OF THREE HEMISPHERES


    2 collections of war-themed tales (some of which are fantasy):

    - UNHAPPY FAR-OFF THINGS

    - TALES OF WAR


    8 rare stories, uncollected in Lord Dunsany's lifetime:
    - ONE MORE TALE

    - THE GERMAN SPY

    - THE HEART OF EARTH

    - EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY

    - THE WAY OF THE WORLD

    - THE LITTLE DOINGS OF DEMOS

    - THE RETURN OF IBRAHIM

    - HOW CARE WOULD HAVE DEALT WITH THE NOMADS


    This is the greatest single collection of Lord Dunsany's short fiction ever assembled!


    If you have never read Lord Dunsany's work, you are in for one great experience. His classic, wonder-drenched short fiction has inspired generations of fantasy writers, from H.P. Lovecraft to Ursula K. LeGuin, from George R.R. Martin to L. Sprague de Camp. H.P. Lovecraft wrote: "[Dunsany's] rich language, his cosmic point of view, his remote dream-worlds, and his exquisite sense of the fantastic, all appeal to me more than anything else in modern literature." It's true. Lord Dunsany's poetic stories are one of the great wonders of the fantasy field. From flying ships to gods and monsters, from Irish myth to the Greek pantheon, this is the ultimate Lord Dunsany collection, with more than 230 classic works in one volume.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWildside Press
    Release dateMar 31, 2016
    ISBN9781434449603
    The Great Book of Wonder: 10 Classic Short Story Collections
    Author

    Lord Dunsany

    Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, the 18th Baron of Dunsany, was one of the foremost fantasy writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Lord Dunsany, and particularly his Book of Wonder, is widely recognized as a major influence on many of the best known fantasy writers, including J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, and C.S. Lewis. Holding one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage, Lord Dunsany lived much of his life at Dunsany Castle, one of Ireland’s longest-inhabited homes. He died in 1957, leaving an indelible mark on modern fantasy writing.

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    Reviews for The Great Book of Wonder

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      Dunsany's stories provide a welcome diversion from modern fantasy. The stories are short and very barebones in terms of plot and character development, nothing of the epicness about them that we have to come to associate with fantasy, at least since Tolkien. Focus is on setting and imagery - it's more about creating pictures in the reader's mind than telling a coherent storyline. Especially the endings are often very abrupt and left hanging, without the happy resolution (or any resolution at all) the reader might expect.I read (got read) these more like fairy tales or parables than as full-grown stories.
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of stories that I will return to later. Back in middle school I went through a phase of reading myths and folktales from around the world. This collection reminds me of those stories with a seasoning of fantasy. A wonderful collection to be savored some times for just the wondrous language that Dunsany weaves.
    • 3/5
      Lord Dunsany's fantasy is unlike any I have ever read, and the best description I can give of these short stories is that they read like a collection of dark nursery rhymes, without the nursery and without the rhymes but with that strange sense of logical illogic that characterizes the more memorable of the genre. You know how some Mother Goose nursery rhymes are so illogical and make no sense outside their own little world contained in a few lines of rhyme? That is just how these stories are: nonsensically sensible little snippets of a different world.These stories are very short with the same brevity of a nursery rhyme intent on fitting its setting, characters, and story into four or so lines. And they mostly end unhappily. The brave hero going off to face the monster is killed (and eaten). Two little idols become rivals and their battle causes an earthquake that ruins their temple. Things end neatly, but not happily.Wikipedia renders a fascinating fact: Dunsany's illustrator, Sidney Sime, was complaining that he did not get to illustrate the type of stories he preferred, so Dunsany suggested that Sime draw whatever he liked and he would write this collection of tales around the illustrations. Perhaps this accounts for the dark tone of the tales; the austere, detailed tone of Sime's fabulous illustrations rather precludes the usual happy fairytale.I read this collection in one sitting and while I can't say I really loved it, it had its own reality about it, rather like the sensation of a vivid dream that you try to recapture not because it was a particularly wonderful dream, but for its arresting sense of really having happened.
    • 3/5
      Lord Dunsany's fantasy is unlike any I have ever read, and the best description I can give of these short stories is that they read like a collection of dark nursery rhymes, without the nursery and without the rhymes but with that strange sense of logical illogic that characterizes the more memorable of the genre. You know how some Mother Goose nursery rhymes are so illogical and make no sense outside their own little world contained in a few lines of rhyme? That is just how these stories are: nonsensically sensible little snippets of a different world.These stories are very short with the same brevity of a nursery rhyme intent on fitting its setting, characters, and story into four or so lines. And they mostly end unhappily. The brave hero going off to face the monster is killed (and eaten). Two little idols become rivals and their battle causes an earthquake that ruins their temple. Things end neatly, but not happily.Wikipedia renders a fascinating fact: Dunsany's illustrator, Sidney Sime, was complaining that he did not get to illustrate the type of stories he preferred, so Dunsany suggested that Sime draw whatever he liked and he would write this collection of tales around the illustrations. Perhaps this accounts for the dark tone of the tales; the austere, detailed tone of Sime's fabulous illustrations rather precludes the usual happy fairytale.I read this collection in one sitting and while I can't say I really loved it, it had its own reality about it, rather like the sensation of a vivid dream that you try to recapture not because it was a particularly wonderful dream, but for its arresting sense of really having happened.

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