7.8 /10 1 Votes
3.9/5 AbeBooks Language English Publication date 1977 Originally published 1977 Genre Speculative fiction | 3.9/5 Goodreads Illustrator Anita Karl Publisher Viking Press ISBN 978-0670413508 Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Similar Sylvia Townsend Warner books, Speculative fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kingdoms of Elfin is a short story collection by Sylvia Townsend Warner, published by the Viking Press in 1977, a year before her death. Many of the stories appeared originally in The New Yorker during the 1970s. The stories are an interconnected series of satirical fantasy stories detailing the manners of the fairy courts of Europe. The collection was Warner's last published work.
Contents
The stories range across various traditional lands of Europe and beyond, including Brocéliande in Brittany, Elfhame in Scotland, Mynydd Prescelly in Wales, the Forest of Arden and Bury St. Edmunds in England, and as far away as the Peris of Persia.
Contents
The collection includes sixteen stories, fourteen of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Endpaper maps are by Anita Karl.
Reception
In a review of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi, Naomi Mitchison described Kingdoms of Elfin as "the last and most brilliant of Sylvia Townsend Warner's books". Thomas M. Disch included Kingdoms of Elfin in his list of "modern classic" works of fantasy. Darrell Schweitzer described The Kingdoms of Elfin as containing "memorable flashes" and said that the stories "reveal new complexities on rereading".