The King of Elfland's Daughter
Ratings19
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings19
Average rating3.7
The people of the obscure village Erl demand to be ruled by a magic lord, so their ruler sends his son Alveric to Elfland to wed the elfin princess Lirazel. He brings her back to Erl and the couple have a son, but Lirazel has trouble integrating with human society. When a scheme by her father spirits her away and Elfland vanishes, Alveric begins a mad quest to find where Elfland went.
The King of Elfland’s Daughter is written in the pseudo-archaic prose style for which Dunsany is known. Some contemporaries thought the style did not suit a novel-length work, but contemporary Irish writer George Russell called the book “the most purely beautiful thing Lord Dunsany has written.” The book touches on a range of themes, including the longing for fantastical things lost, the perception of time, sanity and madness, the fear of the unknown, and being careful what you wish for. Large passages are also devoted to hunting; the original edition even featured an illustration of a unicorn hunt opposite the title page. Neil Gaiman wrote an introduction to the 1999 edition, and Christopher Lee was a featured vocalist on a 1977 progressive rock album based on the book.
Reviews with the most likes.
This book gets a lot of comparisons to Tolkien, Lovecraft, and others of the same era, but all I can say is read it with an open mind. It's not like anything I've ever read, which is mostly a good thing.
The OG of high fantasy. It's less that it's a book I like than it's a book that's nice to have read.
Avery interesting book as it was one of the books that influenced JRR Tolkien's Lord of the rings. Lord Dumsany was a prolfic writer in the early 20th century, unfortunately the books contained many flaws including this one. Poor character development, a rambing plot etc. Pretty amateurish, but there are a few good high points. Interestingly enough two members of Steeleye Span (Bob Johnson and Pete Knight) wrote and produced a 1977 concept album The King of Elfland's Daughter, inspired by the book.
The book would er of interest to those that like early fanatasy books. I thought that is was interesting enough to give this book 3 stars, though maybe I should have given it 2 1/2 stars.
