Second paragraph of third story (“Mlideen”):

All in the Middle City stood the Temples of the city’s priests, and hither came all the people of Mlideen to bring them gifts, and there it was the wont of the City’s priests to carve them gods for Mlideen. For in a room apart in the Temple of Eld in the midst of the temples that stood in the Middle City of Mlideen there lay a book called the Book of Beautiful Devices, writ in a language that no man may read and writ long ago, telling how a man may make for himself gods that shall neither rage nor seek revenge against a little people. And ever the priests came forth from reading in the Book of Beautiful Devices and ever they sought to make benignant gods, and all the gods that they made were different from each other, only their eyes turned all upon Mlideen.

I did a lot of work on Lord Dunsany’s uncle, Sir Horace Plunkett, for my PhD research many years ago, but have only limited familiarity with the nephew’s copious output of fantasy writing. (I read The Gods of Pegāna ten years ago.) This is a selection of his short fiction assembled in 1970 by Lin Carter, as part of his ongoing efforts to cash in on the success of The Lord of the Rings, with some interesting biographical detail of how and when each set of stories was written.

If you’ve read one Dunsany story, to be honest, you’ve read them all. The descriptions are good and the use of language very effective. But nothing very much happens; there are few surprises or moments of tension, and no memorable characters or grand themes beyond exalted whimsy. That was my prejudice before reading the collection, and I’m sorry to say that it was confirmed.

Dunsany was clearly an influence on both H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien, and thus on all of their successors, but I think that both were better writers. Dunsany evokes your sensawunda, and makes you feel that there is a magical world just around the corner, out of sight; but both Lovecraft and Tolkien did the same and added a lot more depth and structure to their respective mythologies. With Dunsany, you feel that he is just telling you another story; Lovecraft and Tolkien take you into the depths of their detailed imaginary worlds. Lovecraft also adds horror, and Tolkien moral courage, to give extra dimensionality to the narrative.

Don’t get me wrong, Dunsany is a good writer, but he paved the way for better. (See also, “Lord Dunsany: The Geography of the Gods”, by Vernon Hyles, in More Real Than Reality: The Fantastic in Irish Literature and the Arts, edited by Donald E. Morse and Csilla Bertha.)

You can get this collection here. This was my top unread book acquired in 2016; next on that pile is The Number Mysteries: A Mathematical Odyssey Through Everyday Life, by Marcus Du Sautoy.