James Branch Cabell
1) Chivalry
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Chivalry (1909) is a fascinating collection of tales that draw inspiration from the popular chronicles of medieval Europe. Author James Branch Cabell immerses his reader into this distant world, masking his authorship in order to ensure a fluidity of form and content that injects his work of high fantasy with a sense of truth.
Intentionally layered in mystery and claims of authenticity, Chivalry purports to be a copy made by royal scribe Colard Mansion...
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Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919) is a comic fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly pawnbroker can encounter monsters, gods, and devils, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice is one of Cabell's best-known works of fiction. For several years after its initial publication, the novel was the subject of an obscenity trial pursued by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. In 1923, after winning...
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This 1921 play, subtitled "A Comedy in One Act," is Cabell's only published play script. The drama is based on the short story "Balthazar's Daughter" that originally appeared in Cabell's 1916 collection, The Certain Hour. In his prologue, the author confesses that the play "lacks moral fervor" and hopes it will "corrupt no reader irretrievably."
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A Certain Hour (1922) is a collection of stories by James Branch Cabell. Recreating the lives of some of history's most celebrated poets, A Certain Hour is a relative outlier among Cabell's body of work, and is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. "Indisputably the most striking defect of this modern American literature is the fact that the production of anything at all resembling literature...
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The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck (1921) is a comic romance novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world, where history and fantasy collide, where the laws of chivalry and honor continue to hold sway in postbellum South, The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel.
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Taboo (1921) is a comic fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly pawnbroker can encounter monsters, gods, and devils. Cabell tells the story of Philistia, a country dedicated to the persecution of all manner of ill-defined vice and taboo. Bold and satirical, this thinly veiled critique of his own, high-minded critics is essential to understanding Cabell's vision of art. Cabell's work has...
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Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship (1920) is a comic fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly swineherd can rise to be Count of Poictesme, Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship is one of Cabell's best-known works of fiction, and is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. "Then Perion knew that vain regret had turned his brain, very certainly,...
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Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances (1921) is a comic fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly swineherd can rise to be Count of Poictesme, Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances is one of Cabell's best-known works of fiction, and is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. "They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days when...
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The Eagle's Shadow (1904) is the debut novel of James Branch Cabell, a master of fantasy fiction and an underrated figure of twentieth-century American literature. The novel is significant for being among few of Cabell's works to take place both around the time of its publication and to be set in the contemporary world. Like many of his works, however, it paints an intricate portrait of romance and power, immersing its reader into a fiction more real...
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American writer James Branch Cabell carved out a literary niche of his own with a body of work that combines fantasy, humor, and allegory. The novel Gallantry succeeds marvelously on all three levels. In terms of plot, it's a rollicking action-adventure quest story that fans of fiction set in the medieval era will relish. Thematically, it's a clever send-up of the very notion of gallantry and all of the harm wrought by this complex social
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The Cords of Vanity (1920) is a comic romance novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where the laws of chivalry and honor continue to hold sway in postbellum South, The Cords of Vanity is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. A man of honor and tradition, Robert Townsend comes from a prominent family whose wealth and power once depended on its ownership...
12) Gallantry
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Gallantry (1922) is a collection of comic fantasy tales by James Branch Cabell. Set in a fictionalized version of 18th-century England, Gallantry is a relative outlier among Cabell's body of work, and is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. "We begin at a time when George the Second was permitting Ormskirk and the Pelhams to govern England, and the Jacobites had, not yet ceased to hope for...
13) Jurgen
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A middle-aged pawnbroker-poet is allowed to regain his youth for a year of amorous adventures in this compelling fantasy. Filled with strange beasts, alien gods, fabulous lands, beautiful ladies, and an aura of the supernatural, Cabel's allegory leads its hero through affairs with Guenevere and the Lady of the Lake as well as confrontations with God and the Devil. The 1919 publication of Jurgen catapulted its author into a position as one of the most...
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The Cream of the Jest (1923) is a novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world, where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly pawnbroker can encounter monsters, gods, and devils, The Cream of the Jest is one work in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. Partly inspired by the obscenity trial surrounding his novel Jurgen, a Comedy of Justice, The Cream of the Jest is a metafictional blend of literary...
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His name was José Gasparilla, and he was the
self-proclaimed King of Pirates. He terrorized
the waters around Florida, demanding tribute
from every merchant ship he encountered.
Riches flowed into his tiny island kingdom...and yet he longed for a life he could never have,
for he had left his beloved Isabel behind in Spain.
One day he would return to claim her for his
bride, for she had vowed to wait for him.
When he captures a ship and discovers...
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Compiled in one book, the essential collection of books by James Branch Cabell: The Certain Hour, Chivalry, The Cords of Vanity, Domnei, The Eagle's Shadow, Figures of Earth, Gallantry, The Jewel Merchants, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, The Line of Love, The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck, and Taboo.
18) The High Place
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"In the sulphurous The High Place, the amoral hero Florian enters the sleeping-beauty story and (unlike Jurgen with Helen) does not draw back at the sight of excessive beauty. Complications ensue: Beauty is realistically diminished during pregnancy, the first-born child is forfeit to Satan under the pact that guaranteed Florain's success, and an irascible saint is eager to call down holy fire on transgressors. Florian treads close to damnation and...