Lord Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, who was published mostly as Lord Dunsany. Over 90 books of his work, mainly fantasy, appeared in his lifetime and both his original work and compilations have continued to appear. His œuvre includes several hundred short stories, as well as plays, novels and essays. He gained fame with his early stories and plays and was seen in the 1910s as one of the great living writers of the English-speaking world. He is best known today for his 1924 fantasy novel "The King of Elfland's Daughter" and for "The Gods of Pegāna", in which he devised a fictional pantheon and laid the groundwork for the fantasy genre.
Born in London to the second-oldest title (created 1439) in the Irish peerage, and raised there and in Kent, Dunsany lived much of his life at what may be Ireland's longest inhabited house, Dunsany Castle near Tara, though he later retired to Shoreham in Kent, only visiting Ireland. He worked with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, was chess and pistol-shooting champion of Ireland, and travelled and hunted extensively. Dunsany also invented an asymmetrical version of chess called Dunsany's chess. He died in Dublin of appendicitis.
Biography.
Early life.
Edward Plunkett ("Dunsany"), known to his family as "Eddie," was the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (1853–1899), and his wife, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax, née Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Burton (1855–1916).
From a historically wealthy and famous family, Lord Dunsany was related to many well-known Irish figures. He was a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh whose ring and crozier head are still held by the Dunsany family. He was also related to the prominent Anglo-Irish unionist and later nationalist / Home Rule politician Sir Horace Plunkett and George Count Plunkett, Papal Count and Republican politician, father of Joseph Plunkett, executed for his part in the 1916 Rising.
His mother was a cousin of Sir Richard Burton, and he inherited from her considerable height, being 6'4". The Countess of Fingall, wife of Dunsany's cousin, the Earl of Fingall, wrote a best-selling account of the life of the aristocracy in Ireland in the late 19th century and early 20th century called "Seventy Years Young".
Plunkett's only grown sibling, a younger brother, from whom he was estranged from about 1916, for reasons not fully clear but connected to his mother's will, was the noted British naval officer Sir Reginald Drax. Another younger brother died in infancy.
Edward Plunkett grew up at the family properties, notably Dunstall Priory in Shoreham, Kent, and Dunsany Castle in County Meath, but also family homes such as in London. His schooling was at Cheam, Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which he entered in 1896.
Title and marriage.
The title passed to him at his father's death in 1899 at a fairly young age. The young Lord Dunsany returned to Dunsany Castle after war duty, in 1901. In that year he was also confirmed as an elector for the Representative Peers for Ireland in the House of Lords.
In 1903, he met Lady Beatrice Child Villiers (1880–1970), youngest daughter of The 7th Earl of Jersey (head of the Jersey banking family), who was then living at Osterley Park. They married in 1904. Their one child, Randal, was born in 1906. Beatrice was supportive of Dunsany's interests and helped him by typing his manuscripts, with selecting work for his collections, including the 1954 retrospective short story collection, and overseeing his literary heritage after his death.
The Dunsanys were socially active in Dublin and London and travelled between homes in Meath, London and Kent, other than during the First and Second world wars and the Irish War of Independence. Dunsany circulated with many literary figures of the time. To many of these in Ireland he was first introduced by his uncle, the co-operative pioneer Sir Horace Plunkett, who also helped to manage his estate and investments for a time. He was friendly, for example, with George William Russell, Oliver St. John Gogarty, and for a time, W. B. Yeats. He also socialised at times with George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and was a friend of Rudyard Kipling.
In 1910 Dunsany commissioned a two-storey extension to Dunsany Castle, with a billiard room, bedrooms and other facilities. The billiard room includes the crests of all the Lords Dunsany up to the 18th.
Military experience.
Dunsany served as a second lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards in the Second Boer War. Volunteering in the First World War and appointed Captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, he was stationed for a time at Ebrington Barracks in Derry. Hearing while on leave of disturbances in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916, he drove in to offer help and was wounded by a bullet lodged in his skull. After recovery at Jervis Street Hospital and what was then the King George V Hospital (now St. Bricin's Military Hospital), he returned to duty. His military belt was lost in the episode and later used at the burial of Michael Collins. Having been refused forward positioning in 1916 and listed as valuable as a trainer, he served in the later war stages in the trenches and in the final period writing propaganda material for the War Office with MI7b(1). There is a book at Dunsany Castle with wartime photographs, on which lost members of his command are marked.
During the Irish War of Independence, Dunsany was charged with violating the Restoration of Order in Ireland Regulations, tried by court-martial on 4 February 1921, convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of 25 pounds or serve three months in prison without labour. The Crown Forces had searched Dunsany Castle and had found two double-barrelled shotguns, two rook rifles, four Very pistols, an automatic pistol and a large quantity of pistol ammunition, along with shotgun and rifle ammunition.
During the Second World War, Dunsany signed up for the Irish Army Reserve and the British Home Guard, the two countries' local defence forces, and was especially active in Shoreham, Kent, the English village bombed most during the Battle of Britain.
Literary life.
Dunsany's fame arose chiefly from his prolific writings. He was involved in the Irish Literary Revival. Supporting the Revival, Dunsany was a major donor to the Abbey Theatre and he moved in Irish literary circles. He was well acquainted with W. B. Yeats (who rarely acted as editor but gathered and published a Dunsany selection), Lady Gregory, Percy French, "AE" Russell, Oliver St John Gogarty, Padraic Colum (with whom he jointly wrote a play) and others. He befriended and supported Francis Ledwidge, to whom he gave the use of his library, and Mary Lavin.
Dunsany made his first literary tour to the United States in 1919 and further such visits up to the 1950s, in the early years mostly to the eastern seaboard and later, notably, to California.
Dunsany's own work and contribution to the Irish literary heritage were recognised with an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin.
Early 1940s.
In 1940, Dunsany was appointed Byron Professor of English in Athens University, Greece. Having reached Athens by a circuitous route, he was so successful that he was offered a post as Professor of English in Istanbul. However, he had to be evacuated due to the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, returning home by an even more complex route, his travels forming a basis for a long poem published in book form ("A Journey, in 5 cantos: The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Greece, The Battle of the Mediterranean, Battles Long Ago, The Battle of the Atlantic", special edition January 1944). Olivia Manning's character Lord Pinkrose in her novel sequence the "Fortunes of War" was a mocking portrait of Dunsany in that period.
Later life.
In 1947, Dunsany transferred his Meath estate in trust to his son and heir and settled in Kent at his Shoreham house, Dunstall Priory, not far from the home of Rudyard Kipling. He visited Ireland only occasionally thereafter, and engaged actively in life in Shoreham and London. He also began a new series of visits to the United States, notably California, as recounted in Hazel Littlefield-Smith's biographical "Dunsany, King of Dreams".
Death.
In 1957, Lord Dunsany became ill while eating with the Earl and Countess of Fingall at Dunsany, in what proved to be an attack of appendicitis, and died in hospital in Dublin at the age of 79. He had directed to be buried in the churchyard of the ancient church of St Peter and St Paul, Shoreham, Kent, in memory of shared wartimes. His funeral was attended by a wide range of family (including the Pakenhams, Jerseys and Fingals) and Shoreham figures, and representatives of his old regiment and various bodies in which he had taken an interest. A memorial service was held at Kilmessan in Meath with a reading of Crossing the Bar, which was noted as coinciding with a passing flock of geese.
Lady Beatrice survived Lord Dunsany, living on mainly at Shoreham, overseeing his literary legacy until her death in 1970, while their son Randal succeeded him in the barony and was in turn succeeded by his grandson, the artist Edward Plunkett, to whom literary rights passed directly.
Interests.
Aside from his literary work, Dunsany was a keen chess player, setting chess puzzles for journals such as "The Times" of London, playing José Raúl Capablanca to a draw in a simultaneous exhibition, and inventing Dunsany's Chess, an asymmetrical chess variant notable for not involving any fairy pieces, unlike the many variants that require the player to learn unconventional piece movements. He was president of both the Irish Chess Union and the Kent County Chess Association for some years and of Sevenoaks Chess Club for 54 years.
Dunsany was a keen horseman and hunter, for many years hosting the hounds of a local hunt and hunting in parts of Africa. He was at one time the pistol-shooting champion of Ireland. Dunsany also campaigned for animal rights, being known especially for his opposition to the "docking" of dogs' tails, and presided over the West Kent branch of the RSPCA in his later years. He enjoyed cricket, provided the local cricket ground situated near Dunsany Crossroads, and later played for and presided at Shoreham Cricket Club in Kent. He was a supporter of Scouting for many years, serving as President of the Sevenoaks district Boy Scouts Association. He also supported an amateur drama group, the Shoreham Players.
Dunsany provided support for the British Legion in both Ireland and Kent, including grounds in Trim and poetry for the Irish branch's annual memorial service on a number of occasions.
Writings.
Dunsany was a prolific writer of short stories, novels, plays, poetry, essays and autobiography. He published over 90 books in his lifetime, not including individual plays. Books have continued to appear, with more than 120 having issued by 2017. Dunsany's works have been published in many languages.
Early career.
The then Edward Plunkett began his literary career in the late 1890s with published verses such as "Rhymes from a Suburb" and "The Spirit of the Bog", but he made a lasting impression in 1905. Writing as Lord Dunsany he produced the well-received collection "The Gods of Pegāna."
Early fantasy.
Dunsany's most notable fantasy short stories appeared in collections from 1905 to 1919, before fantasy had been recognised as a distinct genre. He paid for the publication of the first collection, "The Gods of Pegāna," earning a commission on sales. This he never again had to do.
The stories in his first two books, and perhaps the beginning of his third, were set in an invented world, Pegāna, with its own gods, history and geography. Starting with this, Dunsany's name is linked to that of Sidney Sime, his chosen artist, who illustrated much of his work, notably up to 1922.
Style.
Dunsany's style varied significantly throughout his writing career. Prominent Dunsany scholar S. T. Joshi has described these shifts as Dunsany moving on after he felt he had exhausted the potential of a style or medium. From the naïve fantasy of his earliest writings, through his early short-story work in 1904–1908, he turned to the self-conscious fantasy of "The Book of Wonder" in 1912, in which he almost seems to be parodying his lofty early style.
Each of his collections varies in mood; "A Dreamer's Tales" varies from the wistfulness of "Blagdaross" to the horrors of "Poor Old Bill" and "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" to the social satire of "The Day of the Poll." The opening paragraph of "The Hoard of the Gibbelins" from "The Book of Wonder," (1912) gives a good indication of both the tone and tenor of Dunsany's style at the time:
Drama.
After "The Book of Wonder," Dunsany began to write plays – many of which were even more successful at the time than his early story collections – while continuing to write short stories. He carried on writing plays for the theatre into the 1930s, including the famous "If", and also some radio productions.
Although many of Dunsany's plays were successfully staged in his lifetime, he also wrote "chamber plays" or closet dramas, intended only to be read privately (as if they were stories) or performed on the radio. Some of these chamber or radio plays involve supernatural events – a character appearing out of thin air or vanishing in full view of the audience, without an explanation of how the effect is to be staged, a matter of no importance, as Dunsany did not intend them to be performed live and visibly.
Middle period.
After a successful US lecture tour in 1919–1920, his reputation now related principally to his plays. He temporarily reduced his output of short stories, concentrating on plays, novels and poetry for a time. His poetry, now little seen, was for a time so popular that it is recited by the lead character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise". His sonnet "A Dirge of Victory" was the only poem included in the Armistice Day edition of the Times of London.
Launching another phase of his work, Dunsany's first novel, "" appeared in 1922. It is set in "a Romantic Spain that never was" and follows the adventures of a young nobleman, Don Rodriguez, and his servant in their search for a castle for Rodriguez. It has been argued that Dunsany's inexperience with the novel form shows in the episodic nature of "Don Rodriguez." In 1924, Dunsany published his second novel, "The King of Elfland's Daughter," a return to his early style of writing. This is seen by many to be Dunsany's finest novel and a classic of fantasy writing. In his next novel, "The Charwoman's Shadow," Dunsany returned to the Spanish milieu and the light style of "Don Rodriguez," to which it is related.
Despite his frequent shifts of style and medium, Dunsany's thematic concerns remained essentially the same. Many of his later novels had an explicitly Irish theme, from the semi-autobiographical "The Curse of the Wise Woman" to "His Fellow Men."
Among his best-known characters was Joseph Jorkens, an obese middle-aged raconteur who frequented the fictional Billiards Club in London and would tell fantastic stories if anyone bought him a large whiskey and soda. From his tales it was clear that Jorkens had travelled to all seven continents, was extremely resourceful and well-versed in world cultures, but always came up short on becoming rich and famous. The "Jorkens" books, which sold well, were among the first of a type that would become popular in fantasy and science fiction writing: highly improbable "club tales" told at a gentleman's club or bar.
Some saw Dunsany's writing habits as peculiar. Lady Beatrice said, "He always sat on a crumpled old hat while composing his tales." (The hat was eventually stolen by a visitor to Dunsany Castle.) Dunsany almost never rewrote anything; everything he published was a first draft. Much of his work was written with a quill pen he made himself; Lady Beatrice was usually the first to see the writings and would help to type them. It has been said that Lord Dunsany sometimes conceived stories while hunting and would return to the Castle and draw in his family and servants to re-enact his visions before he set them on paper.
Translations.
Dunsany's work was translated from early on into languages that include Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Czech and Turkish – his uncle, Horace Plunkett, suggested 14 languages by the 1920s.
Memberships, awards and honours.
Lord Dunsany was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a member and at one point President of the Authors' Society, and likewise President of the Shakespeare Reading Society from 1938 until his death in 1957, when he was succeeded by Sir John Gielgud.
Dunsany was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an honorary member of the Institut Historique et Heraldique de France. He was initially an Associate Member of the Irish Academy of Letters, founded by Yeats and others, and later a full member. At one of their meetings, after 1922, he asked Seán Ó Faoláin, who was presiding, "Do we not toast the King?" Ó Faoláin replied that there was only one toast: to the Nation; but after it was given and O'Faolain had called for coffee, he saw Dunsany, standing quietly among the bustle, raise his glass discreetly, and whisper "God bless him."
"The Curse of the Wise Woman" received the Harmsworth Literary Award in Ireland.
Dunsany received an honorary doctorate, D.Litt., from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1940. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize by Irish PEN, but lost to Bertrand Russell.
Scholars and archivists.
In the late 1990s, a curator, J. W. (Joe) Doyle, was appointed by the estate to work at Dunsany Castle, in part to locate and organise the author's manuscripts, typescripts and other materials. Doyle found several works known to exist but thought to be "lost": the plays "The Ginger Cat" and "The Murderers," some Jorkens stories, and the novel "The Pleasures of a Futuroscope" (later published by Hippocampus Press). He also found hitherto unknown works, including "The Last Book of Jorkens", to whose first edition he wrote an introduction, and an unnamed 1956 short story collection, published as part of "The Ghost in the Corner and other stories" in 2017. Doyle was still working as curator in 2020. Some uncollected works, previously published in magazines, and some unpublished works have been selected in consultation with them and published in chapbooks by a US press.
Fans and scholars S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer worked on the Dunsany œuvre for over twenty years, gathering stories, essays and reference material, for a joint initial bibliography and separate scholarly studies of Dunsany's work. Their updated bibliography appeared in 2013. Joshi edited "The Collected Jorkens" and "The Ginger Cat and other lost plays" and co-edited "The Ghost in the Corner and other stories" using materials unearthed by the Dunsany curator.
In the 2000s a PhD researcher, Tania Scott from the University of Glasgow, worked on Dunsany for some time and spoke at literary and other conventions. A Swedish fan, Martin Andersson, was also active in research and publication in the mid-2010s.
Legacy.
Dunsany's literary rights passed to a will trust first managed by Beatrice, Lady Dunsany, and are currently handled by Curtis Brown of London and partner firms worldwide. (Some past US deals, for example, have been listed by Locus Magazine as by SCG.) A few Dunsany works are protected for longer than normal copyright periods in some territories, notably most of the contents of the "Last Book of Jorkens", and some short stories published on the Dunsany website or elsewhere by the family in the early 2000s.
Dunsany's primary home, over 820 years old, can be visited at certain times. Tours usually include the Library, but not the tower room where he often liked to work. His other home, Dunstall Priory, was sold to an admirer, Grey Gowrie, later head of the Arts Council of the UK, and then passed to other owners. The family still owns farm and downland in the area and a Tudor cottage in Shoreham village. The grave of Dunsany and his wife can be seen in the church graveyard there. (Most previous barons are buried in the grounds of Dunsany Castle.)
Dunsany's manuscripts are collected in the family archive, including some specially bound volumes of some of his works. Scholarly access is possible through the curator.