The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany
**The Book of Wonder** is a collection of fourteen tales by Lord Dunsany that transports readers to a realm filled with mythical cities, fantastical creatures, and whimsical adventures. Each story is inspired by the illustrations of S. H. Sime, whose distinctive and often macabre style enhances the enchanting atmosphere of Dunsany's writing. The narratives are characterized by a focus on mood and imagery, rather than traditional plot or character development, inviting readers to explore the "edge of the world" described in the subtitle.
Dunsany's work features familiar characters, such as a young girl, a pirate, and various thieves, who embark on extraordinary journeys that blur the lines between the mundane and the magical. The tales often highlight the duality of life, contrasting the ordinary existence of London with the allure of imaginative escapades. Noteworthy stories include "Miss Cubbidge and the Land of Romance," where a dragon abducts a woman to a land of dreams, and "The Wonderful Window," in which a salesman discovers a portal to a fantastical city. Through humor and irony, Dunsany crafts narratives that challenge perceptions of reality, making **The Book of Wonder** a captivating exploration of fantasy that resonates with readers seeking adventure beyond the familiar.
The Book of Wonder
First published: 1912
Type of work: Stories
Type of plot: Fantasy—magical world
Time of work: Various times between antiquity and 1910
Locale: Various locations on Earth and imaginary worlds
The Plot
The Book of Wonder: A Chronicle of Little Adventures at the Edge of the World is a collection of fourteen tales in which Lord Dunsany explores mythical cities and creatures as well as the fabulous exploits of familiar characters such as a young English girl, a pirate, a businessman, and thieves. An unusual feature of the collection is that Dunsany wrote the stories in response to the drawings of S. H. Sime, an illustrator whose style was often compared with Aubrey Beardsley’s, and whose wryly humorous yet macabre black-and-white compositions had accompanied Dunsany’s first four short-story collections.
Stories of atmosphere, evocative of mood rather than plot, character, or theme, the tales in The Book of Wonder are notable for the biblical style developed by Dunsany in his earlier work. They are also noteworthy for his facility with leading readers to the place in his subtitle, “the edge of the world.” The locations are recognizable but are all the more seductive for his facile transformation of accessible details into the images from dreams or nightmares.
In his preface, Dunsany invites readers “who are in any wise weary of London” to follow him to new worlds. Some of the stories take place solely in mystical realms and illustrate Dunsany’s oft-noted unique nomenclature. In “The Bride of the Man-Horse,” for example, Shepperalk the centaur leaves his home in the Athraninaurian mountains for Zretazoola, where he will seek a bride, Sombelene. In “The Quest of the Queen’s Tears,” Ackronnian, king of Afarmah, Lool, and Haf, slays the Gladsome Beast in Fairyland in an ultimately failed effort to move Sylvia, the Queen of the Woods, to tears. These stories illustrate Dunsany’s tendency to cast his female characters as queens, princesses, and sphinxes but also as powerless figures of sexual objectification.
Some of the stories display the imaginative ease with which Dunsany moves from London to the edge of the world. In “Miss Cubbidge and the Land of Romance,” a glistening golden dragon abducts the title character from her London home at 12A Prince of Wales Square to the eternal and ancient lands of Romance. In “How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Noles,” young Tommy Tonker becomes an apprentice jewel thief to Nuth, an experienced London burglar living in Belgrave Square. They attempt to steal emeralds from the gnoles, undefined creatures who dwell secretly in a lean, high house in a deep, dark wood.
These stories—along with “The Hoard of the Gibbelins,” in which the adventurous knight Alderic, attempting to steal the man-eating Gibbelins’ emeralds, is caught and hanged, and which concludes with “the tale is one of those that have not a happy ending”—demonstrate Dunsany’s experimentation with humorous, ironic, surprise finales. Miss Cubbidge, for example, in the denouement of her story, receives a letter from a former schoolmate admonishing her for the impropriety of traveling across the mystical seas with a dragon and no chaperone.
Two of Dunsany’s most successful stories concern simple London businesspeople who begin to lead double lives: the real, sterile life of making money and the fantastic life of the imagination. In “The Wonderful Window,” a strange old man dressed in Oriental garb sells a magic window to the romantic salesman Mr. Sladden and installs it over a cupboard in his rented room. Sladden views the mystical Golden Dragon City through the window. Attempting to save the city from invaders, he breaks the window and discovers only his old cupboard behind it. In “The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap,” the salesman Shap develops his imaginative abilities to the point that he creates an old Eastern city, names it Larkar, crowns himself king, and dwells so little in his real life that he is put into a psychiatric ward, still believing himself to be ruler of all the lands of Wonder.