Kingdoms of Elfin

By Sylvia Townsend Warner

Book Overview

"A book for anyone who has heard the horns of Elfin in the distance at twilight." - Neil Gaiman

In Kingdoms of Elfin Sylvia Townsend Warner explores the morals, domestic practices, politics and passions of Elfins. She follows their affairs with mortals, and their daring flights across the North Sea. The Kingdoms of Broc?liande in France, Zuy in the Low Countries, Gedanken in Austria and Blokula in Lappland entertain Ambassadors, hunt with wolves, and rear changelings for the courtiers' amusement. Enter a world where the fairy ruling classes are charming and insolent, and all levels of fairy society are heartless, in human terms. But love and hate strike at fairies of all ranks, as do poverty and the passions of the heart. Enter Elfindom with care.

Sylvia Townsend Warner's last short stories were originally published in The New Yorker, and appeared in book form in 1977. This Handheld Classics reprint brings these sixteen sly and enchanting stories of Elfindom to a new readership, and shows Warner's mastery of realist fantasy that recalls the success of her first novel, the witchcraft classic Lolly Willowes (1926). The foreword is by the noted US fantasy author Greer Gilman, and the introduction is by Ingrid Hotz-Davies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 199994481X
• ISBN13: 9781999944810
• Release Date: October 2018
• Publisher: Handheld Press
• Length: 263 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A classic in fantasy literature

This is Sylvia Townsend Warner at her best - a lean, spare, evocative collection of fairy tales, but for adults, not children. These fairies are tough, cold, selfish beings, yet all the more glamorous and fascinating for that. Seeing them struggle with everyday problems, made all the more difficult sometimes for being fairies, dealing with age, death, birth, and all-too human conditions makes for an involving narrative. The Kingdom of Broceliande that Warner creates is an enduring creation - this book has been a font of inspiration for many authors, and you can trace the development of Warner's style throughout the stories. Never condescending, always brilliant, this collection is a taut narrative of different characters living in the same world as we do, but with a twist. Sometimes dispassionate, sometimes all too human in their reactions to disaster, stress, love, death, anger, Warner's fairies are not for the faint at heart, or those imagining pink and gold gossamer beings to be found at the bottom of the garden. They pack a punch - worth reading at any age. I discovered these in grade school, and am still reading them in my forties. A must-read for any fan of speculative literature, or for any Warner devotee. They translate the human experience in quite a unique way, and I cannot recommend them enough.