A Dreamer's Tales

A Dreamer's Tales

First edition
Author	Lord Dunsany
Illustrator	Sidney Sime
Country	UK
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	George Allen & Sons
Publication date	1910
Media type	Print (hardback)
Preceded by	The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories
Followed by	The Book of Wonder

A Dreamer's Tales is the fifth book by Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others. It was first published in hardcover by George Allen & Sons in September 1910, and has been reprinted a number of times since. Issued by the Modern Library in a combined edition with The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories as A Dreamer's Tales and Other Stories in 1917.

The book is actually Dunsany's fourth major work, as his preceding book, The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth (March 1910), was a chapbook reprinting a single story from his earlier collection The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories (October, 1908).

In common with most of Dunsany's early books, A Dreamer's Tales is a collection of fantasy short stories.

Contents[]

• "Preface"
• "Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean"
• "Blagdaross"
• "The Madness of Andelsprutz"
• "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow"
• "Bethmoora"
• "Idle Days on the Yann"
• "The Sword and the Idol"
• "The Idle City"
• "The Hashish Man"
• "Poor Old Bill"
• "The Beggars"
• "Carcassonne"
• "In Zaccarath"
• "The Field"
• "The Day of the Poll"
• "The Unhappy Body"

Summaries[]

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Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean[]

In this story there is a mountain of which, if any man climbs, they never return; many have promised to come back after looking over the peak, but none have returned. There is one woman whose beauty is such that (in theory) a man would come back if promised her hand in marriage. So a man is sent to look over the mountain.

Blagdaross[]

A tale of several objects in a nursery coming alive.

The Madness of Andelsprutz[]

A tale in which a man visits a city and engages in conversation with two men as to whether or not the city of Andelsprutz is dead or was never alive then one of the men tells a tale of the city and how all cities have souls; he knows because he saw Andelsprutz's soul and engaged in a conversation with her.

Where the Tides Ebb and Flow[]

A story from the perspective of a dead body and what it experiences.

Bethmoora[]

A narrator tells the background of the desolate and abandoned city of Bethmoora. The city was abandoned abruptly for mysterious reasons, possibly a warning from the gods, a message from an emperor, disease or the desert. Bethmoora is brought up again in the later story, The Hashish Man.

Sources[]

• Joshi, S. T. (1993). Lord Dunsany: a Bibliography / by S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 3.

External links[]

• A Dreamer's Tales at Project Gutenberg
• A Dreamer's Tales public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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