“In
a wood older than record, a foster brother of
the hills, stood the village of Allathurion; and
there was peace between the people of that village
and all the folk who walked in the dark ways of
the wood, whether they were human or of the tribes
of the beasts or of the race of the fairies and
the elves and the little sacred spirits of trees
and streams.”
So
writes Edward,
Lord Dunsany
, in his short story, “The Fortress Unvanquishable,
Save for Sacnoth.”
Before J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the
Rings … before H.P. Lovecraft with
his tales of elder gods … there was Edward
John Moreton Drax Plunkett, poet, author, Irish
national chess champion, champion shooter, hunter
…
And
18th Lord of Dunsany, heir to – among other
possessions – Dunsany Castle, a modernized
Norman castle in County Meath, Ireland, that traces
its beginnings to around 1180 – considered
at least one of Ireland's oldest continuously
occupied homes.
Born July 24, 1878, in London to a family whose
Irish roots may well predate the Norman invasion,
Edward - “Eddie” to his family –
was the son of John William Plunkett, a scholar
and mechanical engineer credited with installing
the first Irish telephone system and developing
his own x-ray machine.
Eddie's
mother, Ernle Grosvenor, was a descendant of James
Drax of Barbados and related to Sir Richard Francis
Burton, the British scholar-explorer credited
as the first European to find Lake Tanganyika.
Edward's childhood was reportedly spent on family
property in Shoreham, Kent and Dunstall Priority
as well as Dunsany Castle, and he attended Cheam
and Eton before entering Sandhurst in 1896. He
married Beatrice Child-Villiers, daughter of the
Earl of Jersey, in 1904, and their only child,
Randal – later 19th Lord Dunsany –
was born in 1906.
By
then, Dunsany had already embarked on his career
as writer. His poem “Rhymes from a Suburb,”
was published in the Pall Mall Magazine in September
1897. It's his earliest-known published work.
 The
Gods of Pegana, a book of short stories,
came in 1905, and in 1909, the first of Dunsany's
plays, The Glittering Gate – written
at the suggestion /request of William Butler Yeats
– opened to critical and public acclaim
at London's Abbey Theatre.
 The
King of Elfland's Daughter, considered
a pioneering work in modern fantasy, came in 1924.
During
the intervening years, World War I interrupted
Edward, Lord Dunsany's career. Although in his
mid-thirties when the war started, he enlisted
for active service that included time in the trenches.
After the Great War, he resumed writing and lecturing,
resuming his interest in poetry as well as fantasy.
World
War II imposed another interruption, during which
Dunsany served in the Home Guard and Local Defense
Force. Returning to civilian life again, he added
radio broadcasts and television appearances to
his lectures – which included tours in the
United States – and writing.
In
October 1957, the then-79-year-old Lord Dunsany
suffered an attack of appendicitis. Surgery was
performed, but he never regained consciousness.
He died on Oct 25 in Dublin.
“Genre”
didn't exist as a term when Dunsany began writing.
His works included – besides fantasy, drama
and poetry – general fiction, science fiction
and autobiography.
But
it's his fantasy that has put him on a par with
the likes of Poe, Morris and H. Rider Haggard.
And his works are considered to have influenced
– among others – Tolkien, Lovecraft
and C.S. Lewis.
If
it's the job of the fantasy novelist – and
it is – to fill the reader with a sense
of wonder, Lord Dunsany was a master. The Elfland
he created for his 1924 novel is a world “beyond
the fields we know” where time runs slower
and existence is cause for wonder.
The
witch Ziroonderel at one point chides the men
of Erl (in our human world) for complaining that
their dealings with Elfland have resulted in “overmuch
magic”:
"Overmuch
magic! As though magic were not the spice and
essence of life, its ornament and splendour."
Before
Middle Earth, there was Elfland – and an
Irish lord who opened the gates to fantasy before
we had a name for it.
|
