Editing Lord Dunsany (section)

==Writings==
{{Expand section|with=more about the writings, especially the early short stories and plays, and certain novels|date=December 2022}}
Dunsany was a prolific writer of short stories, novels, plays, poetry, essays and autobiography. He published over 90 books in his lifetime, not including individual plays. Books have continued to appear, with more than 120 having been issued by 2017. Dunsany's works have been published in many languages.

===Early career===
Dunsany began his literary career in the late 1890s writing under his given name, with published verses such as "Rhymes from a Suburb" and "The Spirit of the Bog". In 1905, writing as Lord Dunsany, he produced the well-received collection ''[[The Gods of Pegāna]].''<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-John-Moreton-Drax-Plunkett-18th-Baron-of-Dunsany |title=Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th baron of Dunsany {{!}} Irish dramatist |work=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=12 July 2017}}</ref>

===Early fantasy===
Dunsany's most notable fantasy short stories appeared in collections from 1905 to 1919, before fantasy had been recognised as a distinct genre. He paid for the publication of the first collection, ''The Gods of Pegāna,'' earning a commission on sales.<ref>{{cite book|first=L. Sprague|last=de Camp|author-link=L. Sprague de Camp|title=[[Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers|Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy]]|year=1976 |publisher=[[Arkham House]]|location=Sauk City, Wisconsin|page=53|isbn=0-87054-076-9}}</ref>

The stories in his first two books, and perhaps the beginning of his third, were set in an invented world, Pegāna, with its own gods, history and geography. Starting with this, Dunsany's name is linked to that of [[Sidney Sime]], his chosen artist, who illustrated much of his work, notably up to 1922.<ref>de Camp, p. 54–55</ref>

===Drama===
After ''[[The Book of Wonder]]'' (1912), Dunsany began to write plays – many of which were even more successful at the time than his early story collections – while continuing to write short stories. He carried on writing plays for the theatre into the 1930s, including the famous ''If'' (1921), and also some radio productions.<ref>{{cite book|first=Martin|last=Gardner|author-link=Martin Gardner|chapter=Lord Dunsany|title=Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror|date=1985|editor-first=E.F.|editor-last=Bleiler|editor-link=E. F. Bleiler|publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]]|location=New York City|pages=471–478|isbn=0-684-17808-7}}</ref>

Although many of Dunsany's plays were successfully staged in his lifetime, he also wrote "chamber plays" or [[closet dramas]]. Some of these chamber or radio plays involve supernatural events – a character appearing out of thin air or vanishing in full view of the audience, without an explanation of how the effect is to be staged, a matter of no importance, as Dunsany did not intend them to be performed live.

===Middle period===
After a successful US lecture tour in 1919–1920, Dunsany's reputation was now related principally to his plays. He temporarily reduced his output of short stories, concentrating on plays, novels and poetry for a time. His poetry, now little seen, was for a time so popular that it is recited by the lead character of [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[This Side of Paradise]]''. His sonnet ''A Dirge of Victory'' was the only poem included in the Armistice Day edition of the [[Times of London|''Times'']] of London.

Launching another phase of his work, Dunsany's first novel, ''[[Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley]]'' appeared in 1922. It is set in "a [[Romantic era|Romantic]] Spain that never was" and follows the adventures of a young nobleman, Don Rodriguez, and his servant in their search for a castle for Rodriguez. In 1924, Dunsany published his second novel, ''[[The King of Elfland's Daughter]],'' a return to his early style of writing. In his next novel, ''[[The Charwoman's Shadow]],'' Dunsany returned to the Spanish milieu and the light style of ''Don Rodriguez''.

Among his best-known characters was [[Joseph Jorkens]], an [[obesity|obese]], middle-aged raconteur who frequented the fictional Billiards Club in London and would tell fantastic stories if anyone bought him a large whiskey and soda. From his tales, it was clear that Jorkens had travelled to all seven continents, was extremely resourceful and well-versed in world cultures, but always came up short on becoming rich and famous. The ''Jorkens'' books, which sold well, were among the first of a type that would become popular in fantasy and science fiction writing: highly improbable "club tales" told at a [[gentleman's club]] or bar.

Some saw Dunsany's writing habits as peculiar. Lady Beatrice said, "He always sat on a crumpled old hat while composing his tales". (The hat was eventually stolen by a visitor to Dunsany Castle.) Dunsany almost never rewrote anything; everything he published was a first draft.<ref>[[Darrell Schweitzer]],''Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany'' (1989) Owlswick Press, {{ISBN|0-913896-16-0}}.</ref> Much of his work was written with a quill pen he made himself; Lady Beatrice was usually the first to see the writings and would help to type them. It has been said that Lord Dunsany sometimes conceived stories while hunting and would return to the Castle and draw in his family and servants to re-enact his visions before he set them on paper.{{Citation needed|date=February 2008}}

===Translations===
Dunsany's work was translated from early on into languages that include Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Czech and Turkish – his uncle, Horace Plunkett, suggested 14 languages by the 1920s.<ref>Horace Curzon Plunkett's Diaries, transcribed by Kate Targett (Reading Room, National Library of Ireland.</ref>

===Style and themes===
Dunsany's style varied significantly throughout his writing career. Prominent Dunsany scholar [[S. T. Joshi]] has described these shifts as Dunsany moving on after he felt he had exhausted the potential of a style or medium. From the naïve fantasy of his earliest writings, through his early short-story work in 1904–1908, he turned to the self-conscious fantasy of ''The Book of Wonder'' in 1912, in which he almost seems to be parodying his lofty early style.{{cn|date=December 2022}}

Each of his collections varies in mood; ''[[A Dreamer's Tales]]'' varies from the wistfulness of "Blagdaross" to the horrors of "Poor Old Bill" and "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" to the social satire of "The Day of the Poll." The opening paragraph of "[[The Hoard of the Gibbelins]]" from ''[[The Book of Wonder]],'' (1912) gives a good indication of both the tone and tenor of Dunsany's style at the time:

<blockquote>The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of [[famine]], they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough, their larders would soon be full again.</blockquote>

Despite his frequent shifts of style and medium, Dunsany's thematic concerns remained essentially the same. Many of his later novels had an explicitly Irish theme, from the semi-autobiographical ''[[The Curse of the Wise Woman]]'' to ''His Fellow Men.''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dunsany |first=Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett |title=The curse of the wise woman |last2=Valentine |first2=Mark |date=2014 |publisher=Valancourt books |isbn=978-1-941147-39-9 |location=Richmond (Va.)}}</ref>