Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany

The Right Honourable
The Lord Dunsany

Edward JMD Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (18th Baron)
Born July 24, 1878(1878-07-24)
London
Died October 25, 1957(1957-10-25) (aged 79)
Dublin
Pen name Lord Dunsany
Occupation Writer (Short story writer, Playwright, Novelist, Poet, etc.)
Nationality Irish, British
Genres High fantasy, Science fiction, Crime fiction, Horror, Weird fiction
Notable work(s) Early short story collections, The King of Elfland's Daughter
dunsany.net/18th.htm

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.

Born to one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage, Dunsany lived much of his life at perhaps Ireland's longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara, worked with W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, was chess and pistol-shooting champion of Ireland, and travelled and hunted extensively. He died in Dublin after an attack of appendicitis.

Contents

Biography

Edward Plunkett (Dunsany) 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 Jessica Burton (1855–1916).

From an historically wealthy and famous family, Dunsany was related to many other well-known Irish figures. He was a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh. 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 sibling, a younger brother, from whom he was later estranged, was the noted British naval officer, Admiral The Honourable Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax.

Early life

Edward Plunkett grew up at the family properties, most 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 and finally Sandhurst, which he entered in 1896.

Lady Dunsany, Beatrice Child Villiers

The title passed to him at his father's death at a fairly young age, in 1899, and Dunsany returned to Dunsany Castle after war duty, in 1901.

In 1903, he met Lady Beatrice Child Villiers (1880–1970), youngest daughter of the 7th Earl of Jersey (head of the Jersey banking family), living at Osterley Park, and they were married in 1904. Their only child, Randal, was born in 1906. Beatrice was supportive, and assisted Dunsany in his writing, typing his manuscripts, selecting work for his 1950s retrospective short story collection, and overseeing his literary heritage after his death.

The Dunsanys were socially active in both Dublin and London, and travelled between their homes in Meath, London and Kent, other than during World Wars I and II, and the Irish War of Independence. Dunsany himself circulated with the literary figures of the time, to many of whom he was first introduced by his uncle, the co-operative pioneer Horace Plunkett, who also helped to manage his estate and investments for a time. He was friendly with, for example, George William Russell, Oliver St. John Gogarty and, for a time, W. B. Yeats.

Interests

Dunsany was a keen hunter (for many years hosting the hounds of a local hunt, as well as hunting in parts of Africa) and sportsman, and was at one time the pistol-shooting champion of Ireland.

He enjoyed cricket, provided the local cricket ground situated near Dunsany Crossroads, and later played for and presided at Shoreham Cricket Club.

Dunsany was a keen chess player, set chess puzzles for journals including The Times (of London), played Capablanca to a draw (in a simultaneous exhibition), and also invented Dunsany's chess, an asymmetric chess variant that is notable for not involving any fairy pieces, unlike 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 campaigned for animal rights, being known especially for his opposition to the "docking" of dogs' tails, and was president of the West Kent branch of the RSPCA in his later years.

He was a supporter of scouting over many years, serving as President of the Sevenoaks district Boy Scouts Association. He also supported the 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.

Military experience

Dunsany as Captain, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, World War I

Dunsany served as a Second Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards during the Second Boer War and as a Captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in World War I, when he was wounded. Having been refused forward positioning in 1916, being listed as valuable as a trainer, in the latter stages of the war he spent time in the trenches, and in the very last period wrote material for the War Office. Dunsany signed up for the local defence forces of both Ireland and the United Kingdom during World War II, and was especially active in Shoreham in Kent, the most-bombed village in the Battle of Britain.

Literary life

Dunsany's fame arose chiefly from his prolific writings, and he was involved with 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[1].

Lord Dunsany, New York, 1919

Dunsany made his first literary tour to the USA in 1919, and made further such visits right up to the 1950s, notably to California. Dunsany's own work, and contribution to the Irish literary heritage, was recognised through an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin.

Later life

In the 1930s, Dunsany transferred his Meath estate to his son and heir under a trust, and settled in Shoreham, Kent, at his Kent property, not far from the home of Rudyard Kipling, a friend, and visiting Ireland only occasionally thereafter.

In 1940, Dunsany was appointed Byron Professor of English in Athens University, Greece but had to be evacuated due to wartime disruptions, returning home by a circuitous route, his travels forming a basis for a long poem published in book form. Olivia Manning's character "Lord Pinkrose" in her novel sequence the Fortunes of War was a mocking portrait of Dunsany during this period.[2][3]

Death

In 1957, Lord Dunsany took ill while eating with the Earl and Countess of Fingall, in what proved to be an attack of appendicitis, and died in hospital in Dublin. He had directed that he be buried in the churchyard of the ancient church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Shoreham, Kent, in memory of shared war times. His funeral was attended by a wide range of family (including Pakenham, Jersey and Fingal) 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, 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 primarily at Shoreham, overseeing his literary legacy until her death in 1970, while their son, Randal, succeeded him to the Barony, and was in turn succeeded by his grandson, to whom literary rights passed directly.

Writings

Dunsany was a prolific writer, penning short stories, novels, plays, poetry, essays and autobiography, and publishing over sixty books, not including individual plays. He began his authorial career in the late 1890s, with a few published verses, such as "Rhymes from a Suburb" and "The Spirit of the Bog", but he made a lasting impression in 1905 when he burst onto the publishing scene with the well-received collection The Gods of Pegāna.

Dunsany's most notable fantasy short stories were published in collections from 1905 to 1919. He paid for the publication of the first such collection, The Gods of Pegāna, earning a commission on sales. This he never again had to do, the vast majority of his extensive writings selling.[4]

The stories in his first two books, and perhaps the beginning of his third, were set within an invented world, Pegāna, with its own gods, history and geography. Starting with this book, Dunsany's name is linked to that of Sidney Sime, his chosen artist, who illustrated much of his work, notably until 1922.[5]

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:

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again.

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 also continuing to write short stories. He continued to write plays for the theatre into the 1930s, including the famous If, and a number for radio production.[6]

Although many of Dunsany's stage plays were successfully produced within his lifetime, he also wrote a number of "chamber plays" which were only intended to be read privately (as if they were stories) or performed on the radio, rather than staged . Some of Dunsany's chamber or radio plays contain supernatural events — such as a character spontaneously appearing out of thin air, or vanishing in full view of the audience — without any explanation of how the effect is to be staged — a matter of no importance, since Dunsany did not intend these works actually to be performed live and visible.

Following a successful lecture touring in the USA in 1919–1920, and with his reputation now principally related to his plays, Dunsany 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.

Dunsany's first novel, Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley, was published 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, which is considered by many to be Dunsany's finest novel and a classic in the realm of the fantasy writing.

In his next novel, The Charwoman's Shadow, Dunsany returned to the Spanish milieu and to the light style of Don Rodriguez, to which it is related.

Though his style and medium shifted frequently, Dunsany's thematic concerns remained essentially the same. Many of Dunsany's later novels had an explicitly Irish theme, from the semi-autobiographical The Curse of the Wise Woman to His Fellow Men.

One of Dunsany's best-known characters was Joseph Jorkens, an obese middle-aged raconteur who frequented the fictional Billiards Club in London, and who would tell fantastic stories if someone would buy him a large whiskey and soda. From his tales, it was obvious that Mr 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 which was to become popular in fantasy and science fiction writing: extremely improbable "club tales" told at a gentleman's club or bar.

Dunsany's writing habits were considered peculiar by some. Lady Beatrice said that "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 ever published was a first draft.[7] Much of his work was penned with quill pens, which he made himself; Lady Beatrice was usually the first to see the writings, and would help type them. It has been said that Lord Dunsany would sometimes conceive 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.

Dramatizations

Memberships, awards and honours

Lord Dunsany was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Geographical Society, and an honorary member of the Institut Historique et Heraldique de France.

Lord Dunsany played left half back for the 1938 championship winning team for Drumree.

Dunsany 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 banquets, he asked Sean O'Faolain, who was presiding, "Do we not toast the King?" O'Faolain replied that there was only one toast: to the Nation; but after it was given and he'd called for coffee, Dunsany stood quietly among the bustle, raised his glass discreetly, and whispered "God bless him."[15]

The Curse of the Wise Woman received the Hammerworth Prize in Ireland.

Dunsany also received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin.

Influences

Writers associated with Dunsany

Writers influenced by Dunsany

Scholars and archivists

S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer were early workers on the Dunsany oeuvre, gathering stories and essays and reference material, and producing both an initial bibliography (together) and scholarly studies of Dunsany's work (separate works). Both are well-known figures in the fields of speculative fiction. In recent years, a PhD researcher, Tania Scott, from Glasgow University, has been working on Dunsany for some time, and has spoken at literary and other conventions.

In the late 1990s a curator, J.W. Doyle, was appointed at Dunsany Castle, locating and organising the author's manuscripts, typescripts and other materials. He discovered both known (but "lost") works, such as the plays "The Ginger Cat" and "The Murderers," some Jorkens stories and the novel The Pleasures of a Futuroscope (subsequently published by Hippocampus Press) and unknown, unpublished works, notably including The Last Book of Jorkens, to the first edition of which he wrote an introduction, and an unnamed 1956 short story collection, not yet published.

Bibliography

Notes

Dunsany's literary rights passed from the author to a Trust, which still owns them. These rights were first managed by Beatrice, Lady Dunsany, and are currently administered by Curtis Brown of London and partner companies worldwide (some past US deals, for example, have been listed by Locus Magazine as by SCG).

All of Dunsany's work is in copyright in most of the world as of 2007, the main exception being the early work (published before 1 January 1923), which is in the public domain in the United States.

Dunsany Castle (1181-), County Meath, Ireland

Dunsany's primary home, over 820 years old, can be visited at certain times of year, and tours usually include the Library, but not the tower room he often liked to work in. His other home, Dunstall Priory, was sold to a fan, Grey Gowrie, later head of the Arts Council of the UK, and thence passed on to other owners; the family still own farm- and down-land in the area, and a Tudor cottage in Shoreham village. The grave of Lord Dunsany and his wife can be seen in the Church of England graveyard in the village (most of the previous barons are buried in the grounds of Dunsany Castle).

Dunsany's original manuscripts are collected in the family archive, including some specially bound volumes of some of his works. As noted, there has been a curator since the late 1990s and scholarly access is possible by application.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ A Dictionary of Irish History since 1800, D. J. Hickey & J. E. Doherty, Gill & MacMillan (1980)
  2. ↑ Cooper 1989, p. 159
  3. ↑ Braybrooke & Braybrooke 2004, p. 110
  4. ↑ L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy, p 53 ISBN 0-87054-076-9.
  5. ↑ L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy, p 54-5 ISBN 0-87054-076-9.
  6. ↑ Martin Gardner, "Lord Dunsany" in Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror (1985) edited by E. F. Bleiler. (p. 471-78).
  7. ↑ Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany (1989) by Darrell Schweitzer.
  8. ↑ New York, NY: New York Times, 24 December 1916: Second Thoughts on First Nights: "Speaking of Dunsany ... he has quite come into his own this season ... suddenly seen four produced on Broadway within a single month, and a fifth promised for production before the end of Winter. Everyone is talking about Dunsany now." From a second NY Times ref, three of these were The Golden Doom, The Gods of the Mountain and King Argimines.
  9. ↑ IMDB website
  10. ↑ 1 Nov 2007, Auckland: New Zealand Film Commission, Press Release
  11. ↑ Norwich, Norfolk: 18 December 2007, Norwich Evening News (Kate Scotter)
  12. ↑ Wisbech, Cambs: The Fenland Citizen, November 21, 2007: Hollywood Comes to Wisbech
  13. ↑ British Film Institute
  14. ↑ British Film Institute: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/105799
  15. ↑ O'Faolain, Vive Moi!, pp. 350 n, 353
  16. ↑ S.T. Joshi, Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish imagination Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995, (p.2).
  17. ↑ David Pringle, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy, London, Carlton, 1998. (p. 36)
  18. ↑ Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (p. 152)
  19. ↑ Letter to Elizabeth Toldridge, March 8, 1929, quoted in Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
  20. ↑ [1] REH Bookshelf Website.
  21. ↑ "Kafka and His Precursors"
  22. ↑ Talbot Mundy, Philosopher of Adventure by Brian Taves,McFarland, 2006 (pg. 253).
  23. ↑ Darrell Schweitzer, Pathways to Elfland , Owlswick Press, 1989 (p.19).
  24. ↑ Kenneth J. Zahorski and Robert H. Boyer, Lloyd Alexander, Evangeline Walton Ensley, Kenneth Morris: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, G.K Hall, 1981 (p.116).
  25. ↑ "Jack Vance, Biographical Sketch", (2000) in Jack Vance: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography, British Library, 2000.
  26. ↑ Ursula K. LeGuin, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", pp. 78-9 The Language of the Night ISBN 0-425-05205-2

References

External links

See also

Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by
John William Plunkett		 Baron of Dunsany
1899–1957		 Succeeded by
Randal Arthur Henry Plunkett