The Best of Pre-Tolkien Fantasy

Princess Irene's discovery of a secret stair to the top turret of the castle leads to a wonderful revelation. At the same time, the miner's son Curdie overhears a fiendish plot by the goblins who live below the mountain. But it will take all their wit and courage, and the help of Irene's magic ring, to make sense of their separate knowledge and foil the goblins' schemes.

“No amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany's pervasive charm.”—H.P. Lovecraft With an introduction by Neil Gaiman The poetic style and sweeping grandeur of The King of Elfland's Daughter has made it one of the most beloved fantasy novels of our time, a masterpiece that influenced some of the greatest contemporary fantasists. The heartbreaking story of a marriage between a mortal man and an elf princess is a masterful tapestry of the fairy tale following the “happily ever after.” Praise for The King of Elfland's Daughter “We find that he has but tranfigured with beauty the common sights of the world.”—William Butler Yeats “I shall indeed be happy if this volume contributes to the rediscovery of one of the greatest writers of this century.”—Arthur C. Clarke “Del Rey is to be thanked for bringing these works back into print. No one can understand modern fantasy without understanding its roots, and Lord Dunsany's work is immediately significant as well as enjoyable even today.”—Katharine Kerr “A fantasy novel in a class with the Tolkien books.”—L. Sprague de Camp

Collection includes all seven of the novels in the series.

George MacDonald occupied a major position in the intellectual life of his Victorian contemporaries. This volume brings together all eleven of his shorter fairy stories as well as his essay "The Fantastic Imagination". The subjects are those of traditional fantasy: good and wicked fairies, children embarking on elaborate quests, and journeys into unsettling dreamworlds. Within this familiar imaginative landscape, his children's stories were profoundly experimental, questioning the association of childhood with purity and innocence, and the need to separate fairy tale wonder from adult scepticism and disbelief.

"Not only does any tale which crosshatches between this world and Faerie owe a Founder's Debt to Lord Dunsany, but the secondary world created by J.R.R. Tolkien--from which almost all fantasylands have devolved--also took shape and flower from Dunsany's example." --The Encyclopedia of Fantasy Most fantasy enthusiasts consider Lord Dunsany one of the most significant forces in modern fantasy; his influences have been observed in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and many other modern writers. The Book of Wonder is Dunsany at his peak of his talent. The stories here are a lush tapestry of language, conjuring images of people, places, and things which cannot possibly exist, yet somehow ring true. They are, in short, full of wonder. Together with Dunsany's other major collections, A Dreamer's Tales and Tales of Three Hemispheres, they are a necessary part of any fantasy collection.

THERE was a man named Lessingham dwelt in an old low house in Wasdale, set in a gray old garden where yew-trees flourished that had seen Vikings in Copeland in their seedling time. Lily and rose and larkspur bloomed in the borders, and begonias with blossoms big as saucers, red and white and pink and lemon-colour, in the beds before the porch. Climbing roses, honeysuckle, clematis, and the scarlet flame-flower scrambled up the walls. Thick woods were on every side without the garden, with a gap north-eastward opening on the desolate lake and the great fells beyond it: Gable rearing his crag-bound head against the sky from behind the straight clean outline of the Screes. Cool long shadows stole across the tennis lawn. The air was golden. Doves murmured in the trees; two chaffinches played on the near post of the net; a little water-wagtail scurried along the path. A French window stood open to the garden, showing darkly a dining-room panelled with old oak, its Jacobean table bright with flowers and silver and cut glass and Wedgwood dishes heaped with fruit: greengages, peaches, and green muscat grapes. Lessingham lay back in a hammock-chair watching through the blue smoke of an after-dinner cigar the warm light on the Gloire de Dijon roses that clustered about the bedroom window overhead. He had her hand in his. This was their House. "Should we finish that chapter of Njal?" she said. She took the heavy volume with its faded green cover, and read: "He went out on the night of the Lord's day, when nine weeks were still to winter; he heard a great crash, so that he thought both heaven and earth shook. Then he looked into the west airt, and he thought he saw thereabouts a ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on a gray horse. He passed quickly by him, and rode hard. He had a flaming firebrand in his hand, and he rode so close to him that he could see him plainly. He was black as pitch, and he sung this song with a mighty voice--" Here I ride swift steed. His flank flecked with rime. Rain from his mane drips. Horse mighty for harm; Flames flare at each end. Gall glows in the midst. So fares it with Flosi's redes As this flaming brand flies; And so fares it with Flosi's redes As this flaming brand flies. "'Then he thought he hurled the firebrand east towards the fells before him, and such a blaze of fire leapt up to meet it that he could not see the fells for the blaze. It seemed as though that man rode east among the flames and vanished there. "'After that he went to his bed, and was senseless for a long time, but at last he came to himself. He bore in mind all that had happened, and told his father, but he bade him tell it to Hjallti Skeggi's son. So he went and told Hjallti, but he said he had seen "the Wolf's Ride, and that comes ever before great tidings."'" They were silent awhile; then Lessingham said suddenly, "Do you mind if we sleep in the east wing to-night?" "What, in the Lotus Room?" "Yes." "I'm too much of a lazy-bones to-night, dear," she answered.

Anodos enters a dream-like fairyland of tree-spirits and magic, where he searches for the spirit of the Earth.