[Salt-Man Z]

Abyss, on 20 February 2018 - 02:48 PM, said:

carjug, on 19 February 2018 - 07:35 PM, said:

1) Lord Dunsany, the king of Elfland's Daughter. Dig for it on used book sites, and look up Dunsany's stuff on gutenberg.org .
2) Hope Mirrlees Lud-in-the-Mist.

Dunsany vaguely rings a bell but really barely heard of the first two, curious now.

Dunsany is a true pre-Tolkien fantasy classic. His stuff inspired Lovecraft, for example (and, I'm sure, many many others.) I honestly don't remember a thing about Elfland's Daughter, but it's worth it for the historical perspective. (I feel likewise about Eddison's Worm Ouroboros.) Dunsany also did a ton of short stories, which you can find either on Gutenberg or in cheap/free collections on Amazon. "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles" is a favorite of mine, as is "Chu-Bu and Sheemish".

Lud-in-the-Mist I haven't yet read (I may have to rectify that this year), but I do own a copy, it having garnered the praise of Neil Gaiman, etc.

[stone monkey]

Along with Dunsany, Eddison and Mirlees, for your pre-Tolkien fantasy you might want to look at James Branch Cabell's Poictesme series. Perhaps also Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories too.

Smith also wrote some stories set in a pseudo-medieval kingdom called Averoigne. They are, like pretty much all of his work, interestingly weird.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 22 February 2018 - 08:23 PM