James Branch Cabell 4 hr 30 min read

The Tempter comes, a devil lurks in the library, and Gerald Musgrave sets off on a long, wandering, ironic pilgrimage through myth and desire, a comedy of fig-leaves and the eternal feminine.

James Branch Cabell's 1927 novel is a witty, ornate fantasy from the celebrated author of 'Jurgen.' Elegant, ironic, richly allusive. Read it for Cabell's sophisticated adult fantasy, a droll, beautifully written allegory of a man's lifelong quest and the women who divert him from it.

In its time

Published in 1927, during the 1920s, the pulp era proper.

Reading it

4 hr 30 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).