"Perchance They Were Busy Even Then Arming For Armageddon"

Today I was delighted when a book I ordered a week ago arrived in store - a Dover collection of short stories from another one of my typical forgotten, yet influential authours: Lord Dunsany, one of the grand masters of fantasy. The book, Wonder Tales: The Book of Wonder and Tales of Wonder, is a jumble of 33 tales based on two older, 1912 and 1916 respective, publications. I have read enough testimonials about his everlasting influence on twentieth century writers - from Lovecraft and Tolkien to Gaiman and Mieville - to ascribe great importance to his writings. You can read for yourself the testimonies of two remarkable writers: Lovecraft and Gaiman. Lovecraft said: "[Dunsay's] rich language, his cosmic point of view, his remote dream-worlds, and his exquisite sense of the fantastic, all appeal to me more than anything else in modern literature." Or, if you need more proof of Dunsany's everlasting influence, bear witness to Neil Gaiman, who writes in his Acknowledgements page in Stardust: "I owe an enormous debt to Hope Mirrlees, Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell and C.S. Lewis, wherever they may currently be, for showing me that fairy stories were for adults too." I make a big deal about this authour, among countless others, because I hold true that we need a sense of an authour's influences to value where a writer is taking us with his or her writing, now and later. Neither does it hurt to keep a mental chronicle of literary history, lest we forget and risk losing this knowledge to the abyss of time. If my understanding is correct Dunsany's language imbued a liveliness, or vigour into fantastic literature, making it fun, as well as relevant to us. His language alone elevates fairy stories to the point we can no longer call them children's stories, but appreciate them as full-fledged, adult-worthy stories. You can see his influence, especially, in the rise of the realm of Faerie in several award-winning modern fantasy writers e.g. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, 2005 Hugo Award Winner, or Neil Gaiman, Hugo, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award Winner.

I rest my case. In case you were wondering, the title comes from a line in Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of Romance.