[.ca] The Collected Jorkens Volume 1 (ISBN 189238955X)

A collection of short story treasures:
The 18th Lord Dunsany (d 1957) was an incredibly prolific writer who delved into poetry, plays, short stories, novels, essays, whatever. His prose work is characterized by two things: clever ideas and gorgeous English. He would get an idea--perhaps, while shooting snipe or fox-hunting, and then he'd dedicate himself (and the lives of family and servants) to its realization in whatever written medium seemed appropriate. One category of stories is probably best described as "lies." He felt a bit uncomfortable with the distance some of these tales achieved from plausibility, and so he put them into the mouth of a rather disreputable member of his club: Jorkens. Judging from the collection of stories (the writing of which spanned his entire prose career), Jorkens traveled everywhere in the world and did everything. I especially like story of the man who flew a biplane to Mars (the planets were fortuitously aligned) and what he finds there. Night Shade is publishing the entire collection of Jorkens stories, a great boon to those of us who either haven't been able to find copies of the originals or couldn't afford these now collector items.