Lord Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957, usually Lord Dunsany) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appeared in his lifetime.Lanham, Maryland, USA, 1993: Rowman & Littlefield; Joshi, S.T. and Schweitzer, Darrell; Lord Dunsany: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Studies in Supernatural Literature series). Material has continued to appear. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. Best known today are the 1924 fantasy novel, ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'', and his first book, ''The Gods of Pegāna'', which depicts a fictional pantheon.

Born in London as heir to an old Irish peerage, he was raised partly in Kent, but later lived mainly at Ireland's possibly longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara. He worked with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory supporting the Abbey Theatre and some fellow writers. He was a chess and pistol champion of Ireland, and travelled and hunted. He devised an asymmetrical game called Dunsany's chess. In later life, he gained an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin. He retired to Shoreham, Kent in 1947. In 1957 he took ill when visiting Ireland and died in Dublin of appendicitis.

Biography

Early life

Edward Plunkett (''Dunsany''), known to his family as "Eddie," was the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (1853–1899), and his wife, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax, née Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Burton (1855–1916).

From a historically wealthy and famous family, Lord Dunsany was related to many well-known Irish figures. He was a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh whose ring and crozier head are still held by the Dunsany family. He was also related to the prominent Anglo-Irish unionist and later nationalist / Home Rule politician Sir Horace Plunkett and George Count Plunkett, Papal Count and Republican politician, father of Joseph Plunkett, executed for his part in the 1916 Rising.

His mother was a cousin of Sir Richard Burton, and he inherited from her considerable height, being 6'4". The Countess of Fingall, wife of Dunsany's cousin, the Earl of Fingall, wrote a best-selling account of the life of the aristocracy in Ireland in the late 19th century and early 20th century called ''Seventy Years Young''.

Plunkett's only grown sibling, a younger brother, from whom he was estranged from about 1916, for reasons not fully clear but connected to his mother's will, was the noted British naval officer Sir Reginald Drax. Another younger brother died in infancy.

Edward Plunkett grew up at the family properties, notably, Dunstall Priory in Shoreham, Kent, and Dunsany Castle in County Meath, but also in family homes such as in London. His schooling was at Cheam, Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which he entered in 1896.

Title and marriage

The title passed to him at his father's death in 1899 at a fairly young age. The young Lord Dunsany returned to Dunsany Castle after war duty, in 1901. In that year he was also confirmed as an elector for the Representative Peers for Ireland in the House of Lords.

In 1903, he met Lady Beatrice Child Villiers (1880–1970), youngest daughter of The 7th Earl of Jersey (head of the Jersey banking family), who was then living at Osterley Park. They married in 1904. Their one child, Randal, was born in 1906. Lady Beatrice was supportive of Dunsany's interests and helped him by typing his manuscripts, selecting work for his collections, including the 1954 retrospective short story collection, and overseeing his literary heritage after his death.

The Dunsanys were socially active in Dublin and London and travelled between homes in Meath, London and Kent, other than during the First and Second world wars and the Irish War of Independence. Dunsany circulated with many literary figures of the time. To many of these in Ireland he was first introduced by his uncle, the co-operative pioneer Sir Horace Plunkett, who also helped to manage his estate and investments for a time. He was friendly, for example, with George William Russell, Oliver St. John Gogarty, and for a time, W. B. Yeats. He also socialised at times with George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells had recordings of the broadcasts, but according to articles on the author, these are not extant.
*Dunsany is known to have read short stories and poetry on air and for private recording by Hazel Littlefield-Smith and friends in California. It is thought that one or two of these recordings survive.
*The successful film ''It Happened Tomorrow'' was later adapted for radio.
*The radio drama ''Fortress of Doom'' (2005) in the ''Radio Tales'' series is an adaptation of Dunsany's short story " The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth".

Television

*Dunsany appeared on early television several times, notably on ''The Brains Trust'' (reaching over a quarter of the UK population), but no recordings are known to exist.
*A 1946 BBC production of ''A Night at an Inn'' starred Oliver Burt.
*A half-hour dramatisation of ''A Night at an Inn'', starring Boris Karloff, adapted from Dunsany's play by Halsted Welles and directed by Robert Stevens, was produced for '' Suspense'' and aired in April 1949.
*In 1952, ''Four Star Playhouse'' presented ''The Lost Silk Hat'', directed by Robert Florey and starring Ronald Colman, who also collaborated with Milton Merli on the script.
*An adaptation of ''The Pirates of the Round Pond'' was aired as ''The Pirates of Central Park'' in 2001.
*A dramatised reading of ''Charon'' appeared in the USA TV series ''Fantasmagori'', 2017.

Cinema

*The critically and commercially successful 1944 film '' It Happened Tomorrow'', nominated for two Oscars, credited "The Jest of Hahalaba" as one of its sources.
*The short ''In the Twilight'', a 15-minute colour production from a short story of that name, directed by Digby Rumsey, was showcased in the mid-1970s at the London Film Festival.
*The short ''Nature and Time'', a 1976 colour production from a short story of that name, directed by Digby Rumsey, starred Helen York and Paul Goodchild.
*The 22-minute colour film ''The Pledge'', from the short story "The Highwayman", directed by Digby Rumsey, was released by Fantasy Films in 1981 and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, with music by Michael Nyman.
*The 2008 film ''Dean Spanley'', adapted by Alan Sharp from the novella ''My Talks With Dean Spanley'', directed by Toa Fraser and produced by Matthew Metcalfe and Alan Harris, starred Peter O'Toole, Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam and Bryan Brown.
*George Pal optioned the science fiction novel ''The Last Revolution'' in the 1960s. The short story "Charon" and the novel ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'' were among others optioned at various times, but none are believed to have reached production. Granada TV also bought options or rights for certain stories.
*It was said that the 1998 British-US romantic comedy drama film ''Sliding Doors'', with some similar plot points, directed by Peter Howitt, also had a Dunsanian link with that material and with ''If''.

Music

*Eduardo Bort was inspired by "Idle Days on the Yann" for his debut album ''Eduardo Bort'' (1975), especially for the lyrics of the tracks "Yann", "En las riberas del Yann" and the bonus track "En las fuentes del Yann".Music album inspired by Eduardo Bort - Eduardo Bort (1975)
/ref>
*In 1977, Peter Knight and Bob Johnson, two members of Steeleye Span, recorded a concept album based on Dunsany's ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'', released by Chrysalis Records on LP and later on CD. The album starred Christopher Lee.
*An adaptation of "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" was made by Destiny's End in 1998.
*An interpretation of ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'' was released by the metal band Falcon in 2008

Audiobooks

*An LP of Vincent Price reading a number of Dunsany short stories appeared in the 1980s.
*Several Dunsany short stories have been published as audiobooks in Germany and played on the German national railway, Deutsche Bahn (DB).
*''The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories'' were published in the UK and US in 2017.
*A set of short stories set to music, ''The Vengeance of Thor'', was released by Pegana Press, Olympia, Washington, in 2017.

Video game

*Dunsany appears as a playable character in the 1999 PlayStation game ''Koudelka''.

Memberships, awards and honours

Lord Dunsany was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a member and at one point President of the Authors' Society, and likewise President of the Shakespeare Reading Society from 1938 until his death in 1957, when he was succeeded by Sir John Gielgud.

Dunsany was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an honorary member of the Institut Historique et Heraldique de France. He was initially an Associate Member of the Irish Academy of Letters, founded by Yeats and others, and later a full member. At one of their meetings, after 1922, he asked Seán Ó Faoláin, who was presiding, "Do we not toast the King?" Ó Faoláin replied that there was only one toast: to the Nation; but after it was given and O'Faolain had called for coffee, he saw Dunsany, standing quietly among the bustle, raise his glass discreetly, and whisper "God bless him".

''The Curse of the Wise Woman'' received the Harmsworth Literary Award in Ireland.

Dunsany received an honorary doctorate, D.Litt., from Trinity College Dublin, in 1940. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize by Irish PEN, but lost to Bertrand Russell.

Bibliography

Influences

*Dunsany studied Greek and Latin, particularly Greek drama and Herodotus, the "Father of History". Dunsany wrote in a letter: "When I learned Greek at Cheam and heard of other gods a great pity came on me for those beautiful marble people that had become forsaken and this mood has never quite left me
1
*The King James Bible: In a letter to Frank Harris, Dunsany wrote: "When I went to Cheam School I was given a lot of the Bible to read. This turned my thoughts eastward. For years no style seemed to me natural but that of the Bible and I feared that I never would become a writer when I saw that other people did not use it."
*The Library of Dunsany Castle had a wide-ranging collection dating back centuries and comprising many classic works, from early encyclopaedias through parliamentary records, Greek and Latin works to Victorian illustrated books.
*His father's tale about ancient Egypt also influenced him.
*He was affected by the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, and by the work of Edgar Allan Poe.
*Rudyard Kipling and his works set in India were also read by him.
*Irish speech patterns were an influence.
*''The Darling of the Gods'', a stage play written by David Belasco and John Luther Long, was first performed in 1902–1903. It presents a fantastical, imaginary version of Japan that powerfully affected Dunsany and may be a template for his own imaginary kingdoms.
*Algernon Charles Swinburne, who wrote the line "Time and the Gods are at strife" in his 1866 poem "Hymn to Proserpine": Dunsany later realised this was his unconscious influence for the title ''Time and the Gods''.
*The heroic romances of William Morris, set in imaginary lands of the author's creation affected him, such as ''The Well at the World's End''.
*Dunsany's 1922 novel ''Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley'' seems to draw openly on Cervantes' ''Don Quixote de la Mancha'' (1605 and 1615).
*Dunsany named his play ''The Seventh Symphony'', collected in ''Plays for Earth and Air'' 937 after Beethoven's 7th Symphony, which was one of Dunsany's favourite works of music. One of the last ''Jorkens'' stories returns to this theme, referring to Beethoven's ''Tenth Symphony''.

Writers associated with Dunsany

* Francis Ledwidge wrote to Dunsany in 1912 asking for help in getting his poetry published. After a delay due to a hunting trip in Africa, Dunsany invited him to his home and they met and corresponded regularly thereafter. Dunsany was so impressed that he helped with publication and with introductions to literary society. Dunsany, trying to discourage Ledwidge from joining the army when the First World War broke out, offered him financial support. Ledwidge, however, joined up and found himself for a time in the same unit as Dunsany, who helped with the publication of his first collection, ''Songs of the Fields'' – a critical success on its release in 1915. Ledwidge kept in contact with Dunsany through the war, sending him poems. He was killed at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, even as his second collection of poetry, also selected by Dunsany, circulated. Dunsany later arranged for a third collection to appear, and later still a first ''Collected Edition''. Some unpublished Ledwidge poetry and drama, given or sent to Dunsany, are still held at the Castle.
*Mary Lavin who received support and encouragement from Dunsany over many years.
*William Butler Yeats, although he rarely acted as such, selected and edited a collection of Dunsany's work in 1912.
*Lady Wentworth, a poet writing in a classical style, received support from Dunsany.

Writers influenced by Dunsany

* H. P. Lovecraft was much impressed by Dunsany after seeing him on a speaking tour of the United States. His "Dream Cycle" stories, his dark pseudo-history of how the universe came to be, and his god Azathoth all clearly show Dunsany's influence. He once wrote: "There are my ' Poe' pieces and my 'Dunsany' pieces – but alas – where are my Lovecraft pieces?"
* Robert E. Howard placed Dunsany in a list of his favourite poets in a 1932 letter to Lovecraft.
*Clark Ashton Smith was a fan of Dunsany's work, which had some influence on his fantasy stories.
*J. R. R. Tolkien, according to John D. Rateliff's report, presented Clyde S. Kilby with a copy of ''The Book of Wonder'' as a preparation for his auxiliary role in compiling and developing ''The Silmarillion'' in the 1960s. Tolkien's letters and divulged notes made allusions to two stories found in the volume, "Chu-Bu and Sheemish" and "The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller." Dale J. Nelson has argued in ''Tolkien Studies 01'' that Tolkien may have been inspired by another of ''The Book of Wonder'' tales, "The Hoard of the Gibbelins," while writing a poem, "The Mewlips", included in ''The Adventures of Tom Bombadil''.
*Guillermo del Toro, Mexican film-maker, cited Dunsany as an influence; He dedicated his book ''The Hollow Ones'' to him among other "old-school horror/fantasy writers".
*Neil Gaiman expressed admiration for Dunsany and wrote an introduction to a collection of his stories. Some commentators have seen links between ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'' and Gaiman's ''Stardust'' (book and film). This is seemingly supported by a comment of Gaiman's quoted in ''The Neil Gaiman Reader''.
*Jorge Luis Borges included Dunsany's short story "The Idle City" in '' Antología de la Literatura Fantástica'' (1940, revised 1976). He also, in his essay "Kafka and His Precursors," included Dunsany's story "Carcassonne" as one text that presaged or paralleled Franz Kafka's themes.
*Donald Wandrei, in a 7 February 1927 letter to H. P. Lovecraft, listed Dunsany's ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'' among his collection of "weird books" that Wandrei had read.
*Talbot Mundy much admired Dunsany's "plays and fantasy", according to his biographer, Brian Taves.
*Cyril M. Kornbluth, an avid Dunsany reader as a young man, mentions him in a short fantasy story, "Mr. Packer Goes to Hell" (1941).
* Arthur C. Clarke enjoyed Dunsany's work and corresponded with him between 1944 and 1956. The letters are collected in ''Arthur C. Clarke & Lord Dunsany: A Correspondence''. Clarke also edited and allowed the use of an early essay as an introduction to a volume of ''The Collected Jorkens''. The essay acknowledges the link between Jorkens and ''Tales from the White Hart''.
*Manly Wade Wellman esteemed Dunsany's fiction.
*Margaret St. Clair was an admirer of Dunsany's work. Her story "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" (1951) is a sequel to Dunsany's "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles".
*Evangeline Walton stated in an interview that Dunsany inspired her to write fantasy.
*Jack Vance was a keen reader of Dunsany's work as a child.
*Michael Moorcock was influenced by Dunsany.
*Peter S. Beagle cites Dunsany as an influence and wrote an introduction to one of the recent reprint editions.
*David Eddings once named Lord Dunsany as his personal favourite fantasy writer and recommended him to aspiring authors.
*Gene Wolfe used a Dunsany poem to open his 2004 work ''The Knight''.
*Fletcher Pratt's 1948 novel ''The Well of the Unicorn'' was written as a sequel to Dunsany's play ''Five Plays, King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior''.
*Ursula K. Le Guin, in an essay on style in fantasy, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", called Dunsany the "First Terrible Fate that Awaiteth Unwary Beginners in Fantasy", alluding to a common practice among young writers at the time to attempt to write in Lord Dunsany's style.
*M. J. Engh has acknowledged Dunsany as an influence.
*Welleran Poltarnees, author of numerous non-fantasy "blessing books" employing turn-of-the-century artwork, uses a pen name based on two of Lord Dunsany's famous stories.
*Gary Myers (writer), Gary Myers's 1975 short story collection ''The House of the Worm'' is a double pastiche of Dunsany and Lovecraft.
*Álvaro Cunqueiro acknowledged the influence of Lord Dunsany on his work and wrote him an epitaph included in "Herba de aquí e de acolá".

Curator and studies

In the late 1990s, a curator, J. W. (Joe) Doyle, was appointed by the estate to work at Dunsany Castle, in part to locate and organise the author's manuscripts, typescripts and other materials. Doyle found several works known to exist but thought to be "lost": the plays "The Ginger Cat and Other Lost Plays, The Ginger Cat" and "The Murderers," some Jorkens stories, and the novel ''The Pleasures of a Futuroscope'' (later published by Hippocampus Press). He also found hitherto unknown works, including ''The Last Book of Jorkens'', to the first edition of which he wrote an introduction, and an unnamed 1956 short story collection, eventually published as part of ''The Ghost in the Corner and other stories'' in 2017. Doyle was still working as curator in 2020. Some uncollected works, previously published in magazines, and some unpublished works, have been selected in consultation with them, and published in chapbooks by a US small press.

Fans and scholars S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer worked on the Dunsany œuvre for over twenty years, gathering stories, essays and reference material, for a joint initial bibliography and separate scholarly studies of Dunsany's work. An updated edition of their bibliography appeared in 2013. Joshi edited ''The Collected Jorkens'' and ''The Ginger Cat and other lost plays'' and co-edited ''The Ghost in the Corner and other stories'' using materials unearthed by the Dunsany curator.

In the late 2000s a PhD researcher, Tania Scott from the University of Glasgow, worked on Dunsany for some time and spoke at literary and other conventions; her thesis was published in 2011, entitled ''Locating Ireland in the fantastic fiction of Lord Dunsany''. A Swedish fan, Martin Andersson, was also active in research and publication in the mid-2010s.

Documentary

An hour-long documentary, ''Shooting for the Butler'', was released by Auteur TV and Justified Films in 2014, directed by Digby Rumsey. With footage from Dunsany and Shoreham, it included interviews with the author's great-grandson, the estate's curator, author Liz Williams, scholar S. T. Joshi, a local who knew the writer personally, and the head of the Irish Chess Union, among others.

Legacy

Dunsany's literary rights passed to a will trust first managed by Beatrice, Lady Dunsany, and are currently handled by Curtis Brown of London and partner firms worldwide. (Some past US deals, for example, have been listed by Locus Magazine as by SCG.) A few Dunsany works are protected for longer than normal copyright periods in some territories, notably most of the contents of the ''Last Book of Jorkens'', and some short stories published on the Dunsany website or elsewhere by the family in the early 2000s.

Dunsany's primary home, over 820 years old, can be visited at certain times. Tours usually include the Library, but not the tower room where he often liked to work. His other home, Dunstall Priory, was sold to an admirer, Grey Ruthven, 2nd Earl of Gowrie, Grey Gowrie, later head of the Arts Council of the UK, and then passed to other owners. The family still owns a farm and downland in the area and a Tudor cottage in Shoreham village. The grave of Dunsany and his wife can be seen in the church graveyard there. (Most previous barons are buried in the grounds of Dunsany Castle.)

Dunsany's manuscripts are collected in the family archive, including some specially bound volumes of some of his works. Scholarly access is possible through the curator. Seven boxes of Dunsany's papers are held at the Harry Ransom Center.

See also

*List of fantasy authors
*List of horror fiction authors

References

Citations

General references

*
*
*
*
*
*
*Joshi, S. T. "Lord Dunsany: The Career of a Fantaisiste" in Darrell Schweitzer, Schweitzer, Darrell (ed.). ''Discovering Classic Fantasy Fiction'', Gillette, NJ: Wildside Press, 1996, pp. 7–48.
*Schweitzer, Darrell. "Lord Dunsany: Visions of Wonder". ''Studies in Weird Fiction'' 5 (Spring 1989), pp. 20–26
*

Further reading

*Lin Carter. "The World's Edge, and Beyond: The Fiction of Dunsany, Eddison and Cabell" in ''Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy''. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973, 27–48.

External links

*
*
*
*
*
Works by Lord Dunsany
at Online Books

the author's page in the official family site
Lord Dunsany Collection
at the Harry Ransom Center
Dunsany Bibliography
including cover images and summaries
Review of Lord Dunsany's short stories
by Jo Walton
*Edward Winter (chess historian), Edward Winter
Lord Dunsany and Chess
(2006)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunsany, Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of
1878 births
1957 deaths
19th-century Anglo-Irish people
20th-century Anglo-Irish people
20th-century British male writers
20th-century British novelists
20th-century Irish male writers
20th-century Irish novelists
20th-century Irish short story writers
Barons of Dunsany
British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
British Army personnel of World War I
British Army personnel of World War II
British chess players
British fantasy writers
British horror writers
British male dramatists and playwrights
British male novelists
British male poets
British memoirists
British people of Irish descent
British science fiction writers
British short story writers
Chess composers
Chess variant inventors
Coldstream Guards officers
Deaths from appendicitis
Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, Edward Plunkett
Ernle family
Fox hunters
Free Foresters cricketers
Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
Irish chess players
Irish fantasy writers
Irish horror writers
Irish male dramatists and playwrights
Irish male novelists
Irish male poets
Irish male short story writers
Irish memoirists
Irish science fiction writers
Literary peers
Mythopoeic writers
People educated at Cheam School
People educated at Eton College
People from County Meath
People from Shoreham, Kent
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers officers
Weird fiction writers
Writers from London