The A to Z of Fantasy Literature

by Stableford, Brian M.

  American irreverence to humorous fantasy.

  1880

  Vernon Lee’s “Faustus and Helena” sets out a new theory of the

  functions of the supernatural in literature.

  1882

  F. Anstey’s Vice Versa employs humorous fantasy to expose the follies and impostures of Victorian attitudes. Gilbert and Sullivan’s light opera Iolanthe arranges a cultural exchange between the fairy court and the House of Lords. Wagner’s heavy opera “Parsifal” completes the set of his mythical dramatizations.

  1883

  Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio explains the difficulties involved in becoming human.

  1884

  Oscar Wilde’s “The Sphinx” takes a tour of the cosmos of the con-

  temporary imagination.

  1886

  Rider Haggard’s She takes the lost race story into new fantastic territory. Marie Corelli’s A Romance of Two Worlds pretends to revitalize religious fantasy while luxuriating in wish fulfillment.

  1887

  Oscar Wilde’s account of “The Canterville Ghost” sophisticates the humorous ghost story.

  1888

  Richard Garnett’s The Twilight of the Gods displays the scope of contes philosophiques dressed with a sharp satirical wit and a blithely decadent style. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adds a new dimension to moralistic fantasy. A. E. Waite’s Elfin Music summarizes the tradition of English fairy poetry.

  xxvi • CHRONOLOGY

  1889

  Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court breaks new ground in didactic timeslip fantasy.

  1890

  James Frazer publishes the first version of The Golden Bough, supplying a mythical account of the evolution of magic and religion destined to inform countless historical fantasies. Anatole France’s Thaïs brings the ideals of Christianity and Epicureanism into sharp conflict. Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book launches an encyclopedia of the sources of modern children’s fantasy. William Morris’s The Story of the Glittering Plain brings the Hollow Land up to date.

  1891

  George du Maurier’s Peter Ibbetson celebrates the power of dreams to activate wish fulfillment. Oscar Wilde exemplifies the thesis of

  “The Decay of Lying” by publishing The House of Pomegranates and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

  1892

  “Amour Dure” and “Dionea,” in Vernon Lee’s Hauntings, set new standards in decadent erotic fantasy.

  1893

  W. B. Yeats’s The Celtic Twilight celebrates the mystical survival, in spirit, of the Irish Arcadia.

  1894

  Fiona MacLeod’s The Sin Eater and Other Tales and Episodes argues that Scotland was also part of Britain’s Arcadia, although William Morris removes it to The Wood beyond the World. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book brings animal fantasy to a new pitch of sophistication.

  1895

  H. G. Wells’s The Wonderful Visit employs an angel as a critical observer of Victorian folkways. John Kendrick Bangs’s A Houseboat on the Styx credits Dante’s Inferno with New York’s urbanity. Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan sympathizes with the Devil’s aristocratic ennui.

  1896

  M. P. Shiel’s Shapes in the Fire and Laurence Housman’s All-Fellows deploy decadent style in very different ways. Gerhardt Hauptmann’s The Sunken Bell struggles heroically with the problems of staging fantasy.

  1897

  Bram Stoker’s Dracula invents a monster of unparalleled seductiveness.

  1898

  Aleister Crowley joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,

  bringing a dash of Rabelais to the world of English lifestyle fantasy. H. G.

  Wells’s “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” offers a definitive analysis of the tragedy of wish fulfillment.

  CHRONOLOGY • xxvii

  1899

  Charles Godfrey Leland’s Aradia mixes Michelet and Frazer into a heady new cocktail for scholarly and lifestyle fantasists.

  1900

  Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams, issuing a caution to all lovers of hallucinatory fantasy. F. Anstey’s The Brass Bottle toys with the idea of letting an intrusive fantasy get out of hand. L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz suggests that if you live in Kansas, the grass might be greener on the other side of the portal.

  1902

  Kipling’s Just So Stories inject a healthy dose of nonsense into the business of fabulation. E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It adapts Ansteyan fantasy for young readers. Arthur Machen’s Hieroglyphics explores the ecstatic dimension of enchantment.

  1904

  J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan explores the psychological politics of escapism. W. H. Hudson’s Green Mansions and H. G. Wells’s “The Country of the Blind” bid farewell to lost races.

  1905

  Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegana goes in for secondary creation on a large scale in lapidary form. The launch of Winsor McCay’s comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland adapts fantasy to a new and exceedingly hospitable medium.

  1907

  George Sterling’s “A Wine of Wizardry” sets out a manifesto for

  fantasy in a suitably decadent style and demonstrates that the readers of Cosmopolitan are small-town folk at heart.

  1908

  G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday demonstrates that the spy story is an unsuitable medium for religious allegory. Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows demonstrates that animal fantasy is the last viable refuge of Arcadian fantasy. Dunsany’s “The Sword of Welleran” attempts to recast chivalric romance in the mold of heroic fantasy. William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland demonstrates the utility of leaky portals.

  1909

  Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird demonstrates that fantasy is stageable, provided that one takes a sufficiently impressionistic approach.

  1910

  Walter de la Mare’s The Return and Algernon Blackwood’s The Human Chord fuse occult and existentialist fantasy.

  1912

  James Stephens’s The Crock of Gold revisits the Irish Arcadia and finds it slightly tarnished. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes provides a key model of the Noble Savage.

  xxviii • CHRONOLOGY

  1914

  Anatole France’s The Revolt of the Angels provides literary satanism with its masterpiece, shortly before the outbreak of the Great War in August; shortly thereafter, Arthur Machen’s “The Bowmen” illustrates the hazards of fantastic indulgence in a time of great social stress. The Vorticist periodical Blast is founded, taking esoteric allegory to new extremes.

  1915

  Gustav Meyrink’s The Golem and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis illustrate the anxieties bred by war. Jack London’s The Star Rover celebrates escapism. Machen’s The Great Return suggests that Wales was never in greater need of a grail.

  1917

  James Branch Cabell’s The Cream of the Jest employs portal fantasy to mock the follies of American mores.

  1918

  A. Merritt’s “The Moon Pool” employs a definitive portal fantasy

  to issue a manifesto for escapist fantasy in pulp fiction. The Great War ends in November.

  1919

  Stella Benson’s Living Alone indicates the need for postwar re-enchantment. James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen continues his symbolist satiriza-tion of American mores and is fortunate enough to excite stern opposition.

  1920

  David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus modernizes metaphysical allegory. The Câpek brothers’ Insect Play and Hugh Lofting’s The Story of Dr. Doolittle provide contrasting templates for modern animal fantasy.

  Jessie Weston’s scholarly fantasy From Ritual to Record makes an important contribution to the ideology of Celtic Arthurian fantasy.

  1921

  Barry Pain’s Going Home takes sentimental fantasy to a new extreme.

  1922

  Eric Rucker Eddison’s Th
e Worm Ouroboros demonstrates several new extremes to which transfiguration of epic materials might go. David Garnett’s Lady into Fox modernizes theriomorphic fantasy. Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare celebrates the perversities of delusionary fantasy.

  1923

  Weird Tales begins publication.

  1924

  Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter gives Faerie a crucial symbolic role in the politics of re-enchantment.

  1925

  Margaret Irwin’s These Mortals and Christopher Morley’s Thunder on the Left reverse the conventional direction of portal fantasy in order to highlight the moral effects of disenchantment.

  CHRONOLOGY • xxix

  1926

  Ronald Fraser’s Flower Phantoms considers the metaphysical implications of erotic fantasy. Hope Mirrlees’s Lud-in-the-Mist revisits the symbolism of forbidden fruit. Thorne Smith’s Topper adapts Ansteyan fantasy to an American milieu. Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes casts the Devil as a loving huntsman.

  1927

  John Erskine’s Adam and Eve adapts Edenic fantasy to the purposes of modern satire. Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf suggests that the magical Theatre of the Imagination might hold the answer to problems of alienation. T. F. Powys’s Mr. Weston’s Good Wine offers a revised account of divine benevolence.

  1928

  Wyndham Lewis’s The Childermass transfigures Dantean fantasy for the modernist era. Robert Nathan’s The Bishop’s Wife imagines that even angels can fall in love. George Sylvester Viereck and Paul Eldridge’s My First Two Thousand Years explores the ways in which an accursed wanderer might profitably employ an extended sojourn in the world. Lewis Spence’s The Mysteries of Britain collates the scholarly fantasies underlying modern Celtic fantasy.

  1929

  Aleister Crowley’s Moonchild provides a key example of occult fantasy informed by scholarly and lifestyle fantasies. Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” offers a tentative template for sword and sorcery fiction.

  1930

  Charles Williams’s War in Heaven demonstrates that genre thrillers might benefit from a dash of religious fantasy.

  1931

  T. F. Powys’s “The Only Penitent” suggests that the moral rearma-

  ment of the confessional might work both ways.

  1932

  Robert E. Howard’s first Conan story establishes a more authorita-

  tive exemplar for sword-and-sorcery fiction. John Cowper Powys’s A Glastonbury Romance explores the potential of reckless mythological syn-cresis.

  1933

  C. L. Moore’s “Shambleau” hybridizes planetary romance and myth-

  ical fantasy. James Hilton’s Lost Horizon establishes a new escapist myth.

  1934

  C. L. Moore’s “Black God’s Kiss” feminizes sword and sorcery

  fiction in graphic fashion.

  1935

  Charles G. Finney’s The Circus of Dr Lao employs a circus as a mirror to various hidden aspects of the American Dream. Herbert Read’s The Green Child remodels the underworld of Faerie in surreal fashion.

  xxx • CHRONOLOGY

  1936

  Evangeline Walton’s The Virgin and the Swine demonstrates the utility of Celtic fantasy in the dramatization of post-Frazerian scholarly fantasy.

  1937

  J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again sets a crucial precedent for modern immersive fantasy. Stephen Vincent Benét’s

  “The Devil and Daniel Webster” sets up a crucial title fight between the Devil and an American lawyer.

  1938

  T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone provides significant new models of education and wizardry. Mikhail Bulgakov writes The Master and Margarita, knowing that he will be unable to publish its satanic rebellion against Stalinism. J. R. R. Tolkien’s lecture “On Fairy Tales” offers an unprecedentedly robust apologia for fantasy literature.

  1939

  Unknown provides a vital arena for the development of chimerical fantasy. Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds takes metafiction to new extremes. James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” provides a classic description of everyday escapism. World War II begins in September.

  1940

  Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo com-

  pile a showcase anthology of international fantasy literature. Robert Nathan’s Portrait of Jennie provides a key example of sentimental fantasy.

  1941

  The United States becomes embroiled in World War II in Decem-

  ber.

  1942

  C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters breaks new tactical ground in propagandistic Christian fantasy.

  1943

  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince provides a parable of enchantment destined to become the best-selling book of the 20th century.

  1944

  Neil M. Gunn’s The Green Isle of the Great Deep wonders whether heaven itself might be endangered by the spirit of Fascism.

  1945

  C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce redraws the map of Dantean fantasy in a calculatedly unmelodramatic style. George Orwell’s Animal Farm adapts animal fantasy to modern political allegory. Charles Williams’s All Hallows’ Eve places the war-torn world in a melodramatic metaphysical context. In August, World War II is concluded with an unprecedented melodramatic flourish.

  CHRONOLOGY • xxxi

  1946

  Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan sets a new standard in Gothic grotesquerie. Mervyn Wall’s The Unfortunate Fursey lends a new sophistication to humorous fantasy.

  1948

  Fletcher Pratt’s The Well of the Unicorn begins the sophistication of American heroic fantasy.

  1949

  Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces maps the essential features of the heroic quest. The Magazine of Fantasy is launched (becoming The Magazine of Fantasy Science Fiction after its second issue).

  1950

  Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth finds the marketplace not yet ready for decadent far-futuristic fantasy. C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe establishes a crucial exemplar in children’s portal fantasy.

  James Thurber’s The Thirteen Clocks introduces a decadent flamboyance into children’s fantasy.

  1951

  L. Sprague de Camp introduces a lighter note to sword and sorcery

  in The Tritonian Ring.

  1952

  Italo Calvino’s The Cloven Viscount accommodates the substance of chivalric romance to modern fabulation. Mary Norton’s The Borrowers explores the narrative potential of miniaturization. E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web introduces the oddest couple in animal fantasy.

  1954

  Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring give the elves of Nordic mythology a thorough makeover, conclusively revising the imagery of heroic fantasy. Harry Blamires’s The Devil’s Hunting Grounds restores Purgatory to the Dantean scheme.

  1956

  C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces modernizes Apuleius’s story of Cupid and Psyche.

  1958

  T. H. White’s The Once and Future King updates Malory’s Matter of Britain. Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden adds a new metaphorical dimension to children’s timeslip fantasy.

  1960

  Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine and Private Place sustains the tradition of American sentimental fantasy. Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen imports a new energy to children’s Celtic fantasy.

  1961

  Michael Moorcock’s “The Dreaming City” undertakes a new de-

  parture in sword and sorcery fiction.

  xxxii • CHRONOLOGY

  1962

  Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes finds further employment for the circus as a mirror of dreams. Thomas Burnett Swann’s

  “Where Is the Bird of Fire?” demonstrates the unreadiness of the American market to accommodate clas
sical fantasy. Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth modernizes didactic portal fantasy. Moorcock’s “The Eternal Champion” takes Joseph Campbell’s notion of the ubiquitous hero on to a multiversal stage.

  1963

  L. Sprague de Camp’s Swords and Sorcery provides a definitive showcase for the subgenre. Andre Norton’s Witch World draws hybrid science-fantasy further into the realms of magical fantasy. Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are inverts the logic of parental moral terrorism.

  1964

  Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three Americanizes the Matter of Britain. Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adds a phantasmagoric flamboyance to moralistic fantasy.

  1966

  The Ace and Ballantine paperback editions of The Lord of the

  Rings become best-sellers, setting the text en route to becoming the most highly regarded text of 20th-century popular fiction.

  1967

  Robert Scholes’s The Fabulators popularizes the notion of modern fantastic fiction as metafictional fabulation. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude establishes the definitive text of “magic realism.” Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child demonstrates that toy animals can be as effectively anthropomorphized as real ones.

  1968

  Ursula le Guin’s The Wizard of Earthsea sets a crucial precedent for the employment of immersive fantasies set in sophisticated secondary worlds in the field of “young adult” literature. Leon Garfield’s “Mr. Corbett’s Ghost” updates the moral outlook of Christmas fantasy.

  1969

  Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series is given its own label, retrospec-

  tively taking aboard books published in the wake of The Lord of the Rings; its range and ambitions are defined by Lin Carter’s exemplary anthology showcasing The Young Magicians. Vera Chapman founds the Tolkien Society.

  1970

  Jack Finney’s Time and Again provides a paradigm example of timeslip romance. Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni Rising illustrates the potential of Tolkienesque commodified fantasy. Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber expands the reach of portal fantasy to embrace the recent recomplication of secondary worlds.

  CHRONOLOGY • xxxiii

  1972

  Richard Adams’s Watership Down recycles the Aeneid as an ecological and political fable about dispossessed rabbits. Angela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman provides an analytical account of the seductions of erotic fantasy.