Saturday, July 13, 2024

A Dunsany Conundrum

My Wormwoodiana post of last month, on the centenary of Lord Dunsany's novel The King of Elfland's Daughter, elicited some interesting correspondence from various friends and Dunsany collectors.  First, I can confirm that the paragraph by Dunsany I quoted from the US dust-wrapper of The Blessing of Pan (1928), did in fact appear earlier on the flaps of the 1924 US dust-wrapper for The King of Elfland's Daughter. I do not know whether it is on the 1924 UK edition dust-wrapper (but I can say it is not in that edition of the book), so if anyone out there has this dust-wrapper, or has seen it, let me know. 

I was informed about another interesting text associated with The King of Elfland's Daughter. The 1976 French translation of the book, as La fille du roi des elfes, contains Lin Carter's introduction to the 1969 Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, translated into French, and a short text headed "The Land of Men". It appears on the next page after Dunsany's usual single-paragraph Preface. These three paragraphs are in French, though I present them here in English: 

The Land of Men

At that time, man only had a vision of the world reduced to the distance he could cover on foot or on horseback. Most were content to stay in the regions they knew and listen to the stories of wandering travelers who brought back from their odysseys descriptions of strange places where even stranger events took place. Everything they said then seemed possible and probable because no one other than them had seen these things, and deep in their dazzled eyes could always be read the twinkling of the stars and wonder.

This is how everyone had heard about the Enchanted Kingdom. In fact, many had even seen its misty shores at the ends of the Earth, but no one ever dared to approach it too closely, because everyone also knew of the special powers that elves possess. Nevertheless, the brave bourgeois of the Aulnes valley were very eager to attract the benefits of this singular magic; so that they all rejoiced when Alveric, Prince of the Alders, ventured beyond the mists and brought with him the attractive daughter of the Elf King, Princess Lirazel.

These beginnings were auspicious. Because Lirazel was not a mortal being, Lirazel was a fairy. There was no malice in her, but she could not adapt to the narrow limits of human life. No supernatural creature, no elf can be fully satisfied. And especially in the Land of Men…

Does this text ring any bells with readers? The French edition gives no source or specified copyright of this text (it also gives no source or copyright credit for Lin Carter's introduction). I do not recognize it.  I has the feel that it might be by Dunsany, and I wonder if it might have appeared on the 1924 UK first edition dust-wrapper, or elsewhere, whether it is by Dunsany or not. 

Comments welcomed.

 

2 comments:

  1. Douglas A. AndersonJuly 14, 2024 at 11:59 AM

    It has been pointed out to me that the 1976 French translation credits the 1972 English edition published by Tom Stacey as its source. I have never seen that edition in dust-wrapper. Perhaps the unusual text derives from it? Does anyone have this edition to check?

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  2. Douglas A. AndersonJuly 31, 2024 at 2:23 PM

    Thanks to a friend I can now say that "The Land of Men" text quoted above does not appear on the Tom Stacey dust-wrapper.

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