Lord Dunsany 1 hr 12 min read

Before the gods made the worlds, MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI made the gods, and set Skarl the Drummer to drum, for while Skarl drums, the worlds endure; and when he tires, they will be no more.

Lord Dunsany's 1905 collection is a foundational masterpiece of modern fantasy, his invented mythology of Pegāna. Lyrical, majestic, incomparable. Read it for the wellspring of imaginary-world fantasy, a complete pantheon of gods and prophets conjured in jeweled, biblical prose, the book that showed Tolkien and Lovecraft what fantasy could be.

In its time

Published in 1905, during the 1900s, the scientific romance.

Reading it

1 hr 12 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).