Fifty-One Tales

Fifty-One Tales
	First UK edition
Author	Lord Dunsany
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	Elkin Mathews (UK); (US)
Publication date	1915
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Preceded by	Five Plays
Followed by	The Last Book of Wonder

Fifty-One Tales is a collection of fantasy short stories by Irish writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and others. The first editions, in hardcover, were published simultaneously in London and New York City by Elkin Mathews and , respectively, in April, 1915. The British and American editions differ in that they arrange the material slightly differently and that each includes a story the other omits; "The Poet Speaks with Earth" in the British version, and "The Mist" in the American version.

The collection's significance in the history of fantasy literature was recognized by its republication (as The Food of Death: Fifty-One Tales) by the Newcastle Publishing Company as the third volume of the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library in September, 1974. The Newcastle edition used the American version of the text.

The book collects fifty-one short stories by the author.

Contents[]

"The Assignation"
"Charon"
"The Death of Pan"
"The Sphinx at Gizeh"
"The Hen"
"Wind and Fog"
"The Raft Builders"
"The Workman"
"The Guest"
"Death and Odysseus"
"Death and the Orange"
"The Prayer of the Flowers"
"Time and the Tradesman"
"The Little City"
"The Unpasturable Fields"
"The Worm and the Angel"
"The Songless Country"
"The Latest Thing"
"The Demagogue and the Demi-Monde"
"The Giant Poppy"
"Roses"
"The Man with the Golden Ear-rings"
"The Dream of King Karna-Vootra"
"The Storm"
"A Mistaken Identity"
"The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise"

"Alone the Immortals"
"A Moral Little Tale"
"The Return of Song"
"Spring in Town"
"How the Enemy Came to Thlūnrāna"
"A Losing Game"
"Taking Up Piccadilly"
"After the Fire"
"The City"
"The Food of Death"
"The Lonely Idol"
"The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts)"
"The Reward"
"The Trouble in Leafy Green Street"
"Furrow-Maker"
"Lobster Salad"
"The Return of the Exiles"
"Nature and Time"
"The Song of the Blackbird"
"The Messengers"
"The Three Tall Sons"
"Compromise"
"What We Have Come To"
"The Tomb of Pan"
"The Poet Speaks With Earth" (English version only)
"The Mist" (American version only)

References[]

Joshi, S. T. (1993). Lord Dunsany: a Bibliography / by S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. pp. 5–6.

External links[]

Fifty-One Tales at Project Gutenberg
Fifty-One Tales public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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v t Lord Dunsany (works)
List of works
Original collections	The Gods of Pegāna Time and the Gods The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories A Dreamer's Tales The Book of Wonder Fifty-One Tales The Last Book of Wonder Tales of Three Hemispheres The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens Jorkens Remembers Africa Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey The Fourth Book of Jorkens The Man Who Ate the Phoenix The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories Jorkens Borrows Another Whiskey The Last Book of Jorkens
Posthumous collections	At the Edge of the World Beyond the Fields We Know Over the Hills and Far Away The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer, and Other Fantasms Time and the Gods The Collected Jorkens In the Land of Time, and Other Fantasy Tales
Drama	Five Plays The Ginger Cat and Other Lost Plays
Novels	Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley The King of Elfland's Daughter The Charwoman's Shadow The Curse of the Wise Woman
Poetry	Fifty Poems Verses Dedicatory
Short stories	"Chu-Bu and Sheemish" "The Hoard of the Gibbelins" "Idle Days on the Yann"
Characters	Joseph Jorkens
Related	John Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (father) Reginald Drax (brother) Dunsany Castle Edward Plunkett, 20th Baron of Dunsany (son and heir)