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Boothby’s Pharos the Egyptian (1899), Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars, George Griffith’s The Mummy and Miss Nitocris (1906), Algernon Blackwood’s “The Nemesis of Fire” (1908), and Sax Rohmer’s The Brood of the Witch-Queen. The casting of John Knittel’s Nile Gold (1929) and Eliot Crawshay-Williams’s “Nofrit” as hallucinatory fantasies reflects a decline in plausibility, but the motif was revived again in Anne Rice’s The Mummy; or, Rameses the Damned (1989).
MUNDY, TALBOT (1879–1940). Pseudonym of British-born writer William Lancaster Gribbon, resident in the United States from 1909. His work for the pulp magazines—primarily Adventure—is mostly set in the Far East; after King of the Khyber Rifles (1916), some of its more exotic inclusions took on elements of theosophical fantasy, most notably a loosely knit series featuring the exotic exploits of a U.S. secret agent. It comprises “Moses and Mrs Aintree” (1922), The Mystery of Khufu’s Tomb (1922; book 1933), The Nine Unknown (1923; book 1924), The Devil’s Guard (1926; aka Ramsden), and Jimgrim (1931).
Other works with significant fantastic elements include Om: The Secret of Abhor Valley (1924), Black Light (1930), Full Moon (1935; aka There Was a Door), and Old Ugly Face (1940). Mundy also wrote a series of historical fantasies, comprising Queen Cleopatra (1929, Tros of Samothrace (1934; 4-vol. edition 1967; 3-vol. edition 1976), and The Purple Pirate (1935), whose tone and manner are similar to the work of Robert E. Howard.
MUNN, H. WARNER (1903–1981). U.S. writer peripherally associated with the Lovecraft circle. He contributed a series of theriomorphic fantasies to Weird Tales (1928–31), collected as The Werewolf of Ponkert (1958) and further expanded in Tales of the Werewolf Clan (2
vols., 1979). King of the World’s Edge (1939; book 1966) is an enterprising Arthurian fantasy with a sequel belatedly published as The Ship from Atlantis (1967; combined with its predecessor as Merlin’s Godson, 1976); their theme was further extrapolated in the epic historical fantasy Merlin’s Ring (1974), and Munn also wrote a prequel, The Lost Legion (1980). His uncollected short fiction—much of it produced as gift books for private circulation—includes numerous fantasies illustrating his scholarly interest in folklore and occultism.
MURRAY, MARGARET (1863–1963). British scholar. Her work as an Egyptologist remains academically respectable, but her highly fanciful
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scholarly fantasy The Witch Cult in Western Europe (1921) set the florid speculations of Jules Michelet in a theoretical framework derived from James Frazer to produce a vivid account of witches secretly maintaining pagan fertility cults against the hostility of the church. This notion was summarized in an article, “Witchcraft,” that she contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (editions from 1929 to 1968) and expanded in The God of the Witches (1931). The Divine King in England (1952) extended it to the proposition that the English royal family was, throughout the Middle Ages, the mainstay of the British witch cult, involved in periodic ritual murder.
Murray’s ideas were taken up by Gerald Gardner, who “rediscovered”
pagan “covens” of the kind she described and dedicated himself to their
“preservation,” thus launching the most successful modern lifestyle fantasy, reflected and elaborated in a great deal of modern fantasy fiction. Literary works explicitly based on Murray’s thesis include The Last Devil (1927), by Signe Toksvig, and Melusine; or, Devil Take Her (1936), by Charlotte Haldane; “wiccan” fantasies by such writers as Gael Baudino and Diana L. Paxson, and such works as Freda Warrington’s Dark Cathedral, are a little further removed.
MUSÄUS, JOHANN KARL (1735–1787). German scholar and writer.
His pioneering collection of Volksmärchen der Deutschen (5 vols., 1782–87; partly tr. as Popular Tales of the Germans, 1791) was the first major collection of national folklore; it prompted the Brothers Grimm to attempt a more comprehensive survey and inspired literary works by such pillars of German romanticism as Ludwig Tieck and the Baron de la Motte Fouqué. Musäus’s fiction, sampled in Thomas Carlyle’s showcase anthology of German Romance (1827), includes “Libussa”
(1782), about the gifted offspring of a woodsman and a dryad, and
“Dumb Love” (1782; aka “The Spectre Barber”), an unusual account of posthumous punishment.
MUSE. A source of literary inspiration, usually personified as a woman.
Homer appeals to one for assistance in remembering his lines, but subsequent classical writers divided the labor between nine daughters of Mnemosyne (memory) fathered by Zeus. From the Renaissance on,
muses were routinely represented by writers as demanding mistresses, vampiric in their effect—a notion graphically extrapolated in Tim Powers’s The Stress of Her Regard. Many writers have looked to actual individuals to fill the role; Robert Graves waxed eloquent on the subject,
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linking his various muses to his idiosyncratic but influential idea of the goddess; “real” muses feature in such literary fantasies as Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love, but symbolic ones—as in John Barth’s The Book of Ten Nights and a Night—remain more common.
MUSIC. Fantastic literature has a close relationship with music, which extends from ballads through operas (the list of operas with fantastic li-brettos occupies 24 pages of the Clute/Grant Encyclopedia) to modern
“folk music” and such genres as “Gothic rock.” As with sexual passion, the psychological effects of music are often represented as a quasi-magical phenomenon, as reflected in the mythical significance of Orpheus’s lyre and Pan’s pipes, or even an instrument of divine revelation, as in James Huneker’s more extreme studies of melomania and Zoran Zivkovic’s Seven Touches of Music. It is partly for these reasons that composers are routinely drawn to fantastic themes, while music is routinely used in fantastic fiction as a magical agent. The establishment of bardic fantasy as a subgenre of commodified heroic fantasy was entirely natural.
Composers whose works have had a considerable influence on liter-
ary fantasy include Richard Wagner, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (whose The Magic Flute is transfigured in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Night’s Daughter and Cameron Dokey’s Sunlight and Shadow, 2004), and Hector Berlioz, whose Symphonie Fantastique is transfigured by Marvin Kaye. Other transfigurations of classical musical can be found in the work of Mercedes Lackey.
Magical music frequently figures as an agent of temptation and transportation, as in transfigurations of the folktale of the Pied Piper by Robert Browning and others, and Ludwig Tieck’s version of the Tannhaüser myth. It is sometimes gifted with redemptive or healing powers, as in Alan Garner’s Elidor, where the salvation of the secondary world is accomplished by a unicorn’s sacrificial song. Writers of fantasy who are also accomplished musicians—the combination is remarkably common—routinely make such uses of magical music in their work; notable examples include Charles de Lint, Paul Brandon, Vera Nazarian, and Caiseal Mór.
Modern musicians who have dabbled in literary fantasy in addition to their lyrics are numerous; examples include Mortiis, in Secrets of my Kingdom (2001); Karen Michalson of Point of Ares, whose Enemy Glory (2001) is named after the band’s first album (1996); and Luke Sutherland, veteran of several bands, whose quasi-autobiographical
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Venus as a Boy (2004) features an Orkney-born boy who can generate such sexual ecstasy in others that they see angels. These musicians are not as numerous, however, as those who have produced concept albums with themes drawn from fantasy literature; notable examples of the latter include Rick Wakeman’s Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1975), Dave Greenslade’s Pentateuch of the Cosmogony (1980 with text and illustration by Patrick Woodroffe), Hawkwind’s Michael Moorcock–based Chronicles of the Black Sword (1985), Fields of the Nephilim’s Elizium (1990), Inkubus Sukkubus’s Heartbeat of the Earth (1995), The Garden of Delight’s Scheoul (1996), Faith and the Muse’s Annwyn, benea
th the Waves (1996), and Ataraxia’s Lost Atlantis (1999).
Notable works in which magical music plays a central role include
E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “Ritter Gluck,” F. W. Bourdillon’s Nephelé (1896), J. Meade Falkner’s The Lost Stradivarius, James Branch Cabell’s “The Music from behind the Moon,” Patricia Lynch’s Brogeen Follows the Magic Tune (1952), Nancy Kress’s The White Pipes (1985), Grace Chetwin’s The Chimes of Alfaylen, Greg Bear’s Songs of Earth and Power (1994), Sarah Ash’s Songspinners, China Miéville’s King Rat, Geoff Nicholson’s Flesh Guitar (1998), Elizabeth Scarborough’s Phantom Banjo, Jane Lindskold’s Pipes of Orpheus, Gwyneth Jones’s series begun with Bold as Love, Naomi Kritzer’s Fires of the Faithful (2002) and Turning the Storm (2003), and numerous works by Gael Baudino, L. E. Modesitt, and Elizabeth Haydon. Fantasy novels with accessory CDs include Laura Esquivel’s The Law of Love (1995; tr.
1996). See also EROTIC FANTASY.
MYERS, JOHN MYERS (1906–1988). U.S. writer. Silverlock (1949) is a metafictional romp through the “Commonwealth” of literature. The Moon’s Fire-Eating Daughter (1981) is a companion piece of sorts, contriving encounters with creators rather than their creations.
MYTH. A term derived from the Greek word for “story,” thus licensing the commonplace meaning of something once believed but now recognized as fiction; in specialized definitions employed by anthropologists and folklorists, by contrast, myths are sacred narratives concerning the interaction of the human and divine worlds. No clear boundary separates myths from legends and folk tales, but the term tends to be reserved for stories that deal with the creation and divine administration of the world rather than matters of imaginary history featuring heroic or charismatic individuals (legends) or fancies that were never afforded any kind of reverent awe (folktales).
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The myths of different cultures—particularly the classical and Nordic mythologies—provide the bedrock of a large fraction of modern fantasy. One of the earliest “encyclopedias” of mythology, whose compilation encouraged the syncretic amalgamation so evident in literary recycling and transfiguration, was Giovanni Boccaccio’s De ge-nealogia deorum gentilium [On the Genealogy of the Gods and the Gentiles] (1350–74). Hindu mythology and various Oriental mythologies have also given rise to substantial subgenres of fantasy literatures. Persian mythology has given rise to a few examples, notably Hilari Bell’s Book of Sohrab series launched with Flame (2003).
The fastest-growing areas are, however, African mythology—
especially in its Afro-Caribbean variants, as exemplified by the work of Nalo Hopkinson—and Native American mythology. As the 20th century ended, the latter category enjoyed a considerable boom, variously reflected in such works as Win Blevins’s Ravenshadow (1999), Norma Johnson’s Feather in the Wind (2001), Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (2000), Morrie Ruvinsky’s Dream Keeper (2000), Gerald Vizenor’s Chancers (2000), Nancy Wood’s Thunderwoman: A Mythic Tale of the Pueblos (1999), and Marly Youmans’s The Curse of the Raven Mocker (2003).
MYTHOPOEIC FANTASY. Mythopoeisis is the process by which
myths are made; the core of mythopoeic fantasy consists of the output of writers who see their endeavors as a matter of manufacturing myths, although the label is routinely applied to writers engaged in the constructive remaking of myths. The term was popularized by the Inklings, whose use of it prompted Glen H. Goodknight to found in 1967 a
Mythopoeic Society devoted to their works. The society began holding annual conferences (Mythcons) in 1970, broadening the scope of its interests to accommodate a wider constituency; the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards for fiction and scholarship were instituted in 1971. Both awards were divided in 1992, the former into adult and children’s categories and the latter into “Inklings Studies” and “Myth and Fantasy Studies.”
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NAPOLI, DONNA JO (1948– ). U.S. writer for children and young adults. The trilogy comprising The Prince of the Pond (1992), Jimmy, the Pickpocket of the Palace (1995), and Gracie, the Pixie in the Puddle
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(2004), which transfigures and dramatically extrapolates the fairy tale of the Frog Prince, set a pattern for many more unusually enterprising transfigurations. The Magic Circle (1993) is based on Hansel and Gretel. Zel (1996) undermines the motif in which the heroine encounters a handsome prince. Spinners (1999, with Richard Tchen) transfigures Rumpelstiltskin, Crazy Jack (1999) Jack and the Beanstalk, Beast (2000) Beauty and the Beast (from the Beast’s viewpoint), and Breath (2003) the Pied Piper.
Napoli’s other fantasies include two classical fantasies— Sirena (1998), featuring sirens, and The Great God Pan (2003), in which Pan is involved in the beginning of the Trojan War. Song of the Magdalene (1996) is a marginal Christian fantasy. In the Angelwings series (16
vols. 1999–2001) for younger readers, apprentice angels must work
hard to earn their wings.
NATHAN, ROBERT (1894–1985). U.S. writer. His deftly polished and mock-naive literary style was perfectly adapted to fabular material, and elements of fantasy often crept into the margins of his early depictions of American rural life. However, it was not until he followed the biblical fantasy Jonah (1925; aka Son of Amitai) with the wholehearted Christian fantasy The Bishop’s Wife (1928) that fantasy motifs—in the latter case an angel—became central to many of his works. The afterlife fantasy There Is Another Heaven (1929) contrasts the ideals of Judaism and Christianity, while Road of Ages (1935) imagines a new Diaspora.
The Innocent Eve (1951) and Heaven and Hell and the Megas Factor (1975) carried such meditations into polite exercises in literary satanism, while further exploratory expeditions in euthanasia are featured in The River Journey (1949) and The Train in the Meadow (1953).
Nathan broke new ground in the classic sentimental/timeslip fantasy Portrait of Jennie (1940), which foreshadowed a sequence of erotic fantasies in which supernatural bridges built by the power of love usually prove heartrendingly fragile. The others include the plaintively humorous The Married Look (1950) and The Rancho of the Little Loves (1956), and the earnestly elegiac So Love Returns (1958), The Wilderness-Stone (1960), and Mia (1970). Similar issues are less directly addressed in But Gently Day (1943), the Faustian fantasy The Devil in Love (1963), and the mock-Arthurian fantasies The Fair (1964) and The Elixir (1971). His later works became increasingly nostalgic; the mock-chivalric romance Sir Henry (1955) and The Mallot Diaries (1965), in which a population of gentle Neanderthals inhabit a secret enclave, may
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be ironic reflections of his perception of his own situation. Nathan stands alongside James Branch Cabell as one of the leading American fantasists of the mid-20th century; his influence on the work of Peter S.
Beagle was profound.
NAZARIAN, VERA (1966– ). Armenian-Russian writer, artist, and musician who moved to Lebanon 1975 and became a U.S. citizen in 1999.
Dreams of the Compass Rose (2002) is a remarkable collage of dream fantasies displaying an ancient alternate world, categorized by the author as “mythic high fantasy.” Lords of the Rainbow (2003) is an “epic fantasy romance” in which color—here perceived as a series of personified avatars—is removed from the world. The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass (2004) is a painstaking allegory.
NERVAL, GÉRARD DE (1808–1855). Pseudonym of French poet
Gérard Labrunie, whose work bridged the Romantic and Symbolist movements. His prose includes a collection of Hoffmanesque tales, La main de gloire (1832) and an alchemical fantasy written in collaboration with Alexandre Dumas, L’alchimiste (1839); the most celebrated are the hallucinatory/erotic fantasies contained in Daughters of Fire (1854; tr. 1922). A further item of the same kind, Aurelia (1855), is translated with other items in Selected Writings (1958). “The Tale of the Caliph Hakim” and “The Tale of the Queen
of the Morning and Soliman the Prince of the Genii” are Arabian fantasies appended to the travelogu
e Journey to the Orient (1851; tr.
1972).
NESBIT, E. (1858–1924). British writer who initiated a new phase in children’s fiction with her accounts of the adventures of the Bastable family, alongside which she wrote humorous fairy tales collected in The Book of Dragons (1899) and Nine Unlikely Tales (1901); the two strands of her work were brought together in a trilogy of Ansteyan novels in the comprising Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and the Story of the Amulet (1906). The Enchanted Castle (1907), The Magic City (1910), and Wet Magic (1913) carried the process of evolution farther into hectic portal fantasies with an infusion of nonsense à la Lewis Caroll, while The House of Arden (1908) and Harding’s Luck (1909) employed timeslips as a means of dramatizing the principles of the author’s staunch
Fabian socialism. Her later collections include The Magic World (1912). Nesbit’s work for adult readers occasionally employs fantastic
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elements, usually to generate horror (refer to HDHL), although Dormant (1911; aka Rose Royal) is a hybrid/science fantasy about suspended animation.
NEWCOMB, ROBERT (?– ). U.S. writer. His commodified/epic fantasy Chronicles of Blood and Stone, comprising The Fifth Sorceress (2002), The Gates of Dawn (2003), The Scrolls of the Ancients (2004), depicts the kingdom of Eutracia in the aftermath of devastating war, the order restored by immortal wizards coming under renewed threat.
NEWMAN, KIM (1959– ). British writer and film critic. His work is blithely chimerical, combining elements of sf (refer to HDSFL), horror (refer to HDHL), and fantasy. Fantasy elements are conspicuous in the apocalyptic fantasy Jago (1991) and the Faustian fantasy The Quo-rum (1994) but are displayed to more spectacular effect in the metafictional/alternative history sequence launched with Anno Dracula (1992), in which vampirism becomes firmly established in Western civilization after the Count (having survived the destruction visited upon him by Bram Stoker) marries Queen Victoria. Later volumes include The Bloody Red Baron (1995) and Judgment of Tears: Anno Dracula 1959 (1998; aka Dracula Cha Cha Cha). The vampire heroine of the series is carried forward from a series of game tie-in novels bylined
The A to Z of Fantasy Literature Page 48
