Today is the anniversary of the death of Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany who died in 1957. An English-Irish author, poet, and playwright, he was commonly known as Lord Dunsany and is considered by many critics to have laid the grounds for the fantasy genre.
Dunsany's most notable fantasy short stories appeared in collections from 1905 to 1919, before fantasy had been recognised as a distinct genre.
He is best known today for the 1924 fantasy novel The King of Elfland's Daughter and his first book, The Gods of Pegāna, which depicts a fictional pantheon.
Among his best-known characters was Joseph Jorkens, an obese, middle-aged raconteur who frequented the fictional Billiards Club in London and would tell fantastic stories if anyone bought him a large whiskey and soda. These books were among the first of a type that would become popular in fantasy and science fiction writing: highly improbable "club tales" told at a gentleman's club or bar.
An impressive list of later writers have said they were influenced by Dunsany’s work including: Terry Pratchett, H. P. Lovecraft, J. R. R. Tolkien, Clark Ashton Smith, Fletcher Pratt, Jorge Luis Borges, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, C. L. Moore, Jack Vance, Arthur C. Clarke, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, David Eddings, Michael Moorcock, Clive Barker, and Neil Gaiman.
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