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THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
1. The A to Z of Buddhism by Charles S. Prebish, 2001.
2. The A to Z of Catholicism by William J. Collinge, 2001.
3. The A to Z of Hinduism by Bruce M. Sullivan, 2001.
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6. Terrorism: Assassins to Zealots by Sean Kendall Anderson and Stephen Sloan, 2003.
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The A to Z of
Fantasy Literature
Brian Stableford
The A to Z Guide Series, No. 46
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
2009
Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.scarecrowpress.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2005 by Brian Stableford
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The hardback version of this book was cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:
Stableford, Brian M.
Historical dictionary of fantasy literature / Brian Stableford.
p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of literature and the arts ; no. 5) Includes bibliographical references.
1. Fantasy fiction—Dictionaries. 2. Fantasy fiction—Bio-bibliography.
I. Title. II. Series.
PN3435.S82 2005
809'.915—dc22
2005000099
ISBN 978-0-8108-6829-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8108-6345-3 (ebook)
⬁™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Pri
nted in the United States of America
Contents
Editor’s Foreword
( Jon Woronoff )
ix
Acknowledgments
xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations
xiii
Chronology
xv
Introduction
xxxvii
THE DICTIONARY
1
Bibliography
449
About the Author
499
vii
Foreword
This latest addition to the series of Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts is fairly large—and it has to be. For fantasy literature, while rather young in terms of scholarly classification, is as old as they come in reality.
Myths and folktales, fairy tales and fables were around even before there was much of a written literature, and once put on paper this category just kept growing, and growing, and growing. Over the centuries it has reached in all possible directions, backward into the mythical past, forward into science fiction, and sideways into all sorts of parallel worlds. Works can portray hate and war or love and romance; they can solve all our pressing problems or leave most unsolved; they can be cautionary and didactic or humorous and, yes, fantastic. They can and do reflect the situation in all cultures and civilizations the world has ever seen, plus many it is never likely to see. Thus, even the most concise compilation must cover a lot of ground, given the vast numbers of books and shorter works, authors, illustrators, and publishers, and of types, and categories.
Fortunately, any presentation of fantasy literature is facilitated by the form adopted by this and other books in the series, since it can focus on many significant individual features in the dictionary section, which includes entries on literally hundreds of authors, dozens of types and categories, a broad array of standard themes and stock characters (many of which are periodically recycled), and the situation in different countries and cultures. The history of fantasy literature is traced in the chronology.
The introduction, which might best be read after perusing some of the entries, explains the phenomenal, if almost inevitable, growth of the field and its increasingly complex categorization—this in scholarly terms but quite accessibly to ordinary readers. For those who want to know more, the bibliography provides a wide range of further reading resources.
The A to Z of Fantasy Literature was written by Brian Stableford, who is presently lecturer in creative writing in the School of Cultural Studies, University College Winchester, where he teaches creative writing and writing ix
x • FOREWORD
for children. He has also taught at other universities in the past, but the bulk of his time was devoted to writing, and more specifically, writing of fantasy literature, with some predilection for science fiction. He has produced several dozen novels and other works of fiction while also translating and editing books in the same field. Dr. Stableford has also contributed to a number of reference works, before publishing the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature, the first volume in this series. Such a combination of scholarly knowledge and hands-on writing experience is hard to find, and the advantages will quickly become evident.
Jon Woronoff
Series Editor
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people: Neil Barron, for commission-ing the work on his library guide to fantasy literature, which enabled me to lay the groundwork for my studies in the history of fantasy; Farah Mendlesohn, whose correspondence relating to the taxonomic system she developed was very helpful; John Clute, who generously provided information regarding the entry list of his Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature; and Faren Miller, who kindly read and commented on the typescript in advance of its submission.
xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations
abr
abridged
aka
also known as
BBC
British Broadcasting Corporation
BFA
British Fantasy Award
BFS
British Fantasy Society
Clute/Grant Encyclopedia
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, edited by
John Clute and Peter Nicholls
D&D
Dungeons and Dragons
ed
edited by
exp
expanded version
FA
Fantastic Adventures
HDHL
Historical Dictionary of Horror
Literature
HDSFL
Historical Dictionary of Science
Fiction Literature
IAFA
The International Association for the
Fantastic in the Arts
ICFA
The International Conference on the
Fantastic in the Arts
F&SF
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction
MUD
multi-user dungeon
pub
publication
rev
revised
RPG
role-playing game
sf
science fiction
SFWA
originally the Science Fiction Writers
of America, after 1992 the Science-
Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
xiii
xiv • ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
tr
translated
TV
television
US
United States (of America)
WFC
World Fantasy Convention
Chronology
8th century BC
The Homeric epics are recorded, establishing the notion
of literary genius and launching the tradition of fantasy literature. The works of Hesiod, including the Theogony, record the wider substance of classical mythology.
6th century BC
The fables credited to Aesop are recorded.
5th century BC
Aeschylus founds the tradition of tragic drama; his no-
table works include a post–Trojan War trilogy featuring Orestes, whose tribulations are further described by Euripides. Sophocles contributes a trilogy about Oedipus. In 423 B.C., Aristophanes’ ground-breaking humorous fantasy The Clouds wins one of his several prizes for satirical comedy.
19 BC
Virgil’s Aeneid imports Roman ideals into a sequel to the Homeric epics.
c10 AD
Ovid compiles Metamorphoses, a theme anthology recycling
mythical tales, including the story of Perseus and Andromeda.
c65 The wandering protagonist of Petronius’s Satyricon encounters various leftovers of classical mythology.
c150
Lucian satirizes traveler’s tales in the “True History” and writes
“Lucius; or, The Ass,” a licentious tale.
c165
Apuleius’s transfiguration of Lucian’s “Lucius,” The Golden Ass, elaborates the story considerably, interpolating the original allegory of
“Cupid and Psyche.”
c425
Longus writes the Arcadian fantasy Daphnis and Chloe.
c725
Beowulf, written in a language ancestral to English, provides a key example of a local hero-myth.
xv
xvi • CHRONOLOGY
c850
The Voyage of St. Brendan offers an account of an Irish expedition to a series of marvelous islands, providing a popular exemplar of a traveler’s tale with quest elements.
c1090
The Elder Edda provides a poetic version of the foundations of
Nordic fantasy.
c1130
The earliest surviving manuscript of The Song of Roland, transfigures the defeat of Charlemagne’s army by Basque forces in 778, describing a valiant but hopeless rearguard action by Roland and
his com-rades.
c1135
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pioneering exercise in scholarly fantasy,
History of the Kings of Britain, supplies the primal seed of Arthurian fantasy. Geffrei Gaimar’s similarly imaginary History of the English includes the story of Havelok the Dane.
1165
A letter is allegedly received by the Holy Roman Emperor, Freder-
ick Barbarossa, signed by Prester John, the ruler of a Christian kingdom in India. The fake letter—an instrument of propaganda intended to drum up support for the Crusades—is widely copied, its account of Prester John’s kingdom provoking a good deal of scholarly fantasy.
c1170
Marie de France produces her Breton lays, many of which employ
the Arthurian court as a backcloth; Sir Orfeo hybridizes Arthurian romance with the classical materials that provide the other major inspiration of French verse romance. A clerk known as Thomas writes The Romance of Horn, an account of unjust dispossession followed by heroic exploits, culminating in eventual reinstatement. The earliest texts composing the Roman de Renart lay the foundations of modern animal fantasy in their elaboration of fabular accounts of Reynard the Fox.
c1185
Chrétien de Troyes dies, leaving The Story of the Grail (aka Perceval) tantalizingly unfinished and awkwardly entangled with the similarly unfinished Gawain, provoking the production of thousands of literary fantasies and hundreds of scholarly fantasies.
c1210
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzifal imports Chrétien’s account of the grail into German, co-opting Prester John as the grail’s guardian and making him a cousin of Parzifal’s son Lohengrin. A French Cistercian monk expands Chrétien’s story vastly in The Quest of the Holy Grail, making the grail quest a major endeavor of Arthur’s court.
CHRONOLOGY • xvii
c1220
Snorri Sturluson’s Icelandic Prose Edda, together with the Germanic Niebelunglied and Scandinavian Volsunga Saga, completes the foundations of Nordic fantasy. The French romance of Huon of Bordeaux introduces a chivalrous hero to the fairy king Oberon.
c1225
Guillaume de Lorris begins composition of The Romance of the
Rose, an allegorical visionary fantasy based in classical sources.
c1275
Jean De Meun completes a much-expanded version of The Ro-
mance of the Rose, which is extensively copied.
1298
The death of Jacobus de Voragine, the compiler of The Golden Legend and the inspiration of much subsequent Christian fantasy.
The A to Z of Fantasy Literature Page 1