The A to Z of Fantasy Literature

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by Stableford, Brian M.




  OTHER A TO Z GUIDES FROM

  THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.

  1. The A to Z of Buddhism by Charles S. Prebish, 2001.

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  10. The A to Z of Science Fiction Literature by Brian Stableford, 2005.

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  The A to Z of

  Fantasy Literature

  Brian Stableford

  The A to Z Guide Series, No. 46

  The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

  Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

  2009

  Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.

  A wholly owned subsidiary of

  The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  http://www.scarecrowpress.com

  Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom

  Copyright © 2005 by Brian Stableford

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  The hardback version of this book was cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

  Stableford, Brian M.

  Historical dictionary of fantasy literature / Brian Stableford.

  p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of literature and the arts ; no. 5) Includes bibliographical references.

  1. Fantasy fiction—Dictionaries. 2. Fantasy fiction—Bio-bibliography.

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PN3435.S82 2005

  809'.915—dc22

  2005000099

  ISBN 978-0-8108-6829-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-0-8108-6345-3 (ebook)

  ⬁™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Pri
nted in the United States of America

  Contents

  Editor’s Foreword

  ( Jon Woronoff )

  ix

  Acknowledgments

  xi

  Acronyms and Abbreviations

  xiii

  Chronology

  xv

  Introduction

  xxxvii

  THE DICTIONARY

  1

  Bibliography

  449

  About the Author

  499

  vii

  Foreword

  This latest addition to the series of Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts is fairly large—and it has to be. For fantasy literature, while rather young in terms of scholarly classification, is as old as they come in reality.

  Myths and folktales, fairy tales and fables were around even before there was much of a written literature, and once put on paper this category just kept growing, and growing, and growing. Over the centuries it has reached in all possible directions, backward into the mythical past, forward into science fiction, and sideways into all sorts of parallel worlds. Works can portray hate and war or love and romance; they can solve all our pressing problems or leave most unsolved; they can be cautionary and didactic or humorous and, yes, fantastic. They can and do reflect the situation in all cultures and civilizations the world has ever seen, plus many it is never likely to see. Thus, even the most concise compilation must cover a lot of ground, given the vast numbers of books and shorter works, authors, illustrators, and publishers, and of types, and categories.

  Fortunately, any presentation of fantasy literature is facilitated by the form adopted by this and other books in the series, since it can focus on many significant individual features in the dictionary section, which includes entries on literally hundreds of authors, dozens of types and categories, a broad array of standard themes and stock characters (many of which are periodically recycled), and the situation in different countries and cultures. The history of fantasy literature is traced in the chronology.

  The introduction, which might best be read after perusing some of the entries, explains the phenomenal, if almost inevitable, growth of the field and its increasingly complex categorization—this in scholarly terms but quite accessibly to ordinary readers. For those who want to know more, the bibliography provides a wide range of further reading resources.

  The A to Z of Fantasy Literature was written by Brian Stableford, who is presently lecturer in creative writing in the School of Cultural Studies, University College Winchester, where he teaches creative writing and writing ix

  x • FOREWORD

  for children. He has also taught at other universities in the past, but the bulk of his time was devoted to writing, and more specifically, writing of fantasy literature, with some predilection for science fiction. He has produced several dozen novels and other works of fiction while also translating and editing books in the same field. Dr. Stableford has also contributed to a number of reference works, before publishing the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature, the first volume in this series. Such a combination of scholarly knowledge and hands-on writing experience is hard to find, and the advantages will quickly become evident.

  Jon Woronoff

  Series Editor

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people: Neil Barron, for commission-ing the work on his library guide to fantasy literature, which enabled me to lay the groundwork for my studies in the history of fantasy; Farah Mendlesohn, whose correspondence relating to the taxonomic system she developed was very helpful; John Clute, who generously provided information regarding the entry list of his Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature; and Faren Miller, who kindly read and commented on the typescript in advance of its submission.

  xi

  Acronyms and Abbreviations

  abr

  abridged

  aka

  also known as

  BBC

  British Broadcasting Corporation

  BFA

  British Fantasy Award

  BFS

  British Fantasy Society

  Clute/Grant Encyclopedia

  The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, edited by

  John Clute and Peter Nicholls

  D&D

  Dungeons and Dragons

  ed

  edited by

  exp

  expanded version

  FA

  Fantastic Adventures

  HDHL

  Historical Dictionary of Horror

  Literature

  HDSFL

  Historical Dictionary of Science

  Fiction Literature

  IAFA

  The International Association for the

  Fantastic in the Arts

  ICFA

  The International Conference on the

  Fantastic in the Arts

  F&SF

  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science

  Fiction

  MUD

  multi-user dungeon

  pub

  publication

  rev

  revised

  RPG

  role-playing game

  sf

  science fiction

  SFWA

  originally the Science Fiction Writers

  of America, after 1992 the Science-

  Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

  xiii

  xiv • ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

  tr

  translated

  TV

  television

  US

  United States (of America)

  WFC

  World Fantasy Convention

  Chronology

  8th century BC

  The Homeric epics are recorded, establishing the notion

  of literary genius and launching the tradition of fantasy literature. The works of Hesiod, including the Theogony, record the wider substance of classical mythology.

  6th century BC

  The fables credited to Aesop are recorded.

  5th century BC

  Aeschylus founds the tradition of tragic drama; his no-

  table works include a post–Trojan War trilogy featuring Orestes, whose tribulations are further described by Euripides. Sophocles contributes a trilogy about Oedipus. In 423 B.C., Aristophanes’ ground-breaking humorous fantasy The Clouds wins one of his several prizes for satirical comedy.

  19 BC

  Virgil’s Aeneid imports Roman ideals into a sequel to the Homeric epics.

  c10 AD

  Ovid compiles Metamorphoses, a theme anthology recycling

  mythical tales, including the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

  c65 The wandering protagonist of Petronius’s Satyricon encounters various leftovers of classical mythology.

  c150

  Lucian satirizes traveler’s tales in the “True History” and writes

  “Lucius; or, The Ass,” a licentious tale.

  c165

  Apuleius’s transfiguration of Lucian’s “Lucius,” The Golden Ass, elaborates the story considerably, interpolating the original allegory of

  “Cupid and Psyche.”

  c425

  Longus writes the Arcadian fantasy Daphnis and Chloe.

  c725

  Beowulf, written in a language ancestral to English, provides a key example of a local hero-myth.

  xv

  xvi • CHRONOLOGY

  c850

  The Voyage of St. Brendan offers an account of an Irish expedition to a series of marvelous islands, providing a popular exemplar of a traveler’s tale with quest elements.

  c1090

  The Elder Edda provides a poetic version of the foundations of

  Nordic fantasy.

  c1130

  The earliest surviving manuscript of The Song of Roland, transfigures the defeat of Charlemagne’s army by Basque forces in 778, describing a valiant but hopeless rearguard action by Roland and
his com-rades.

  c1135

  Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pioneering exercise in scholarly fantasy,

  History of the Kings of Britain, supplies the primal seed of Arthurian fantasy. Geffrei Gaimar’s similarly imaginary History of the English includes the story of Havelok the Dane.

  1165

  A letter is allegedly received by the Holy Roman Emperor, Freder-

  ick Barbarossa, signed by Prester John, the ruler of a Christian kingdom in India. The fake letter—an instrument of propaganda intended to drum up support for the Crusades—is widely copied, its account of Prester John’s kingdom provoking a good deal of scholarly fantasy.

  c1170

  Marie de France produces her Breton lays, many of which employ

  the Arthurian court as a backcloth; Sir Orfeo hybridizes Arthurian romance with the classical materials that provide the other major inspiration of French verse romance. A clerk known as Thomas writes The Romance of Horn, an account of unjust dispossession followed by heroic exploits, culminating in eventual reinstatement. The earliest texts composing the Roman de Renart lay the foundations of modern animal fantasy in their elaboration of fabular accounts of Reynard the Fox.

  c1185

  Chrétien de Troyes dies, leaving The Story of the Grail (aka Perceval) tantalizingly unfinished and awkwardly entangled with the similarly unfinished Gawain, provoking the production of thousands of literary fantasies and hundreds of scholarly fantasies.

  c1210

  Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzifal imports Chrétien’s account of the grail into German, co-opting Prester John as the grail’s guardian and making him a cousin of Parzifal’s son Lohengrin. A French Cistercian monk expands Chrétien’s story vastly in The Quest of the Holy Grail, making the grail quest a major endeavor of Arthur’s court.

  CHRONOLOGY • xvii

  c1220

  Snorri Sturluson’s Icelandic Prose Edda, together with the Germanic Niebelunglied and Scandinavian Volsunga Saga, completes the foundations of Nordic fantasy. The French romance of Huon of Bordeaux introduces a chivalrous hero to the fairy king Oberon.

  c1225

  Guillaume de Lorris begins composition of The Romance of the

  Rose, an allegorical visionary fantasy based in classical sources.

  c1275

  Jean De Meun completes a much-expanded version of The Ro-

  mance of the Rose, which is extensively copied.

  1298

  The death of Jacobus de Voragine, the compiler of The Golden Legend and the inspiration of much subsequent Christian fantasy.

 

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