A review by dibujared
The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany

Really enjoyed this! It wasn't until I read "How Nuth..." in The Weird anthology that I was interested in reading Dunsany's work; the Lovecraft stories in the Penguin collections that were allegedly inspired by Dunsany were among my least favorite. But I loved "How Nuth..." and decided to dig into more of his short stories. Glad I did! His stories have a sense of wonder and humor that remind me of classic fairy tales. In fact, I think it is this evocation of classic legends and tales but with an almost ironic and often dark twist that appeals to me so much. Bonus points for the intertextual references to other stories in the book, creating a sense of shared history and a firm establishment of setting.

My favorite stories in the book were: "Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men," "The Loot of Bombasharna," "The Quest of the Queen's Tears," "The Hoard of the Gibbelins," and, of course, "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles."