At last, back to business. It’s not that I don’t like children’s literature, but it feels so refreshing to get back to adult-oriented fantasy and the great names behind it. Today’s list has a related theme, though it may be unintentional on my part. Fantasy, so it would seem, has always grown up alongside its sister genre, science fiction; despite its prolific popularity and critical reception, sci-fi has never managed to completely stamp out […]
Now we come to our last big list of children’s authors. This will probably be the biggest one, despite my efforts to divide them up fairly. I don’t have much else to say, so let’s just start. E. B. WHITE (1899-1985) The career of E. B. White’s, a graduate of Cornell University, was highlighted as an essayist for The New Yorker, being one of its most notable contributors, as well as a co-author with William […]
Now we move completely into the 20th century in this continued look at children’s authors. Enjoy! NORTON JUSTER (1929- ) A Lieutenant Junior Grade in the U.S. Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps, Norton Juster has made his career as an architect primarily, but he is best known as the author of The Phantom Tollbooth, in which a boy is whisked away into the metaphorical Kingdom of Wisdom, where the loss of the princesses Rhyme and […]
Once again, we dip into the realm of children’s fantasy, both intended for children and appropriated by children. Let’s dive right in. E. NESBIT (1858-1924) Co-founder of the Fabian Society and a follower of William Morris, Edith Nesbit may have led a troubled personal life, but her contribution to fantasy influenced P. L. Travers, Diana Wynne Jones, J. K. Rowling, and even C. S. Lewis, having turned the focus away from secondary worlds to […]
I don’t really have any good excuses for inactivity. I’ll try to do better. In my last installment of “Masters of Fantasy”, I said that I would focus on more children’s authors the next time. Nothing’s changed, but I’ve found that there are more authors than I thought there would be, so for the next four installments, in order to save myself from doing too much or overwhelming you all in a single post, […]
Machen’s decadent fiction is among the most effective of fin de siècle literature, achieving a tenuous balance between fantastic wonder and repellent horror – a sort of “holy terror.” This novella, arguably his most famous piece of work, is one of the finest examples of such efforts, momentarily piercing the veil that separates mortal perceptions from a greater spiritual reality – and reaping the consequences. THE GREAT GOD PAN (1894) by Arthur Machen […]