Ballantine Fantasy Series retrospective begins

[Extollager]

Black Gate » Blog Archive » Lin Carter and the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series

I thought this was something that would interest some Chronsfolk.

I was in at the beginning, although I didn't buy very many of the books as they appeared; but I'm pretty sure that I got a copy of The Young Magicians, an anthology, in 1969, when it was a new release. It contained two poems by Tolkien that were new to US audiences and certainly to me.

Some of these things I never read at the time and would now find unreadable (for me, that would be Kurtz, for example -- not William Morris, as one or two commenters say).

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Interesting. I can remember when these came out, although I don't think I ever bought any of them. I don't think Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place and the better-known The Last Unicorn were part of this series, but I certainly thank Ballantine for publishing them.

 

[Extollager]

Here's a listing of the series.

Ballantine Adult Fantasy series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I liked Lin Carter's introductions back then, in my teens or so. It wasn't that long before I realized, though, that, from time to time, he overstated the "rarity" of some of his selections -- forgetting, not knowing, or pretending not to know that, say, Dover Books had reprinted it recently; but what did I know? I'd hardly seen a Dover book when these Ballantine mass-market editions were appearing.

By the way, I thought it was interesting to see how many of the BAF selections were (in earlier editions) in C. S. Lewis's library as catalogued a few years after his death (he died fifty years ago this very day, 22 Nov. 1963). I wrote this up in a piece on Land of Unreason for the New York C. S. Lewis Society:


Land of Unreason is one of a bunch of booksLewis owned that were to be reprinted in 1969-1974, when Tolkien's Americanpaperback publisher, Ballantine, cast about for additional material forthe fantasy market. Lewis's library and the approximately 60titles of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, edited by LinCarter, both include William Beckford's Vathek, five James Branch Cabell books, Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, F. MarionCrawford's Khaled, RogerLancelyn Green's From the World's End(the Ballantine edition was called DoublePhoenix and included a work by another author), Rider Haggard and AndrewLang's The World's Desire, Haggard's The People of the Mist, William HopeHodgson's The Night Land (two volumesas printed in the Ballantine series), George MacDonald's Phantastes and Lilith(also some shorter MacDonald fantasies, gathered by Lin Carter for a bookcalled Evenor), George Meredith's The Shaving of Shagpat, Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist, and William Morris's The Water of the Wondrous Isles and The Wood Beyond the World. (Interestingly, Morris's The Well at the World's End, praised by Lewis, was not in the 1969catalogue of his library. Perhaps he owned a copy that waslater acquired by someone as a keepsake. The Well was reprinted by Ballantine in two volumes.) Also, the Lewis library included eleven titles by Lord Dunsany, an author minedfor six Adult Fantasy releases. Richard Hodgens, a member ofthe New York C. S. Lewis Society, translated a portion of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (“Vol. 1: The Ring of Angelica”), the whole ofwhich Lewis read in the original Italian. The Lewis bookcollection also included fantasy by Mervyn Peake, E. R. Eddison, and DavidLindsay that Ballantine reprinted just before the launching of the AdultFantasy series proper. Lin Carter would have been impressed byLewis’s collection. Most of the material reprinted in Carter's seriesthat Lewis did not own belonged to the American Weird Tales magazine tradition (e.g. four volumes of stories byClark Ashton Smith) or had never been published before (e.g. Sanders AnneLaubenthal's somewhat Charles Williams-y Excaliburor Joy Chant's somewhat Lewisian-Tolkienian RedMoon and Black Mountain).

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Interesting essay.

I am more familiar with the "precursors" in that list, having read (of course) The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the works by Beagle I mentioned, and, much later, the extraordinary Peake trilogy, as well as the very weird A Voyage to Arcturus.

Of the "series proper," I have only read The Blue Star (interesting historical/parallel world fantasy), Red Moon and Black Mountain (one of the first books I got from the Science Fiction Book Club; I don't remember too much about it, but as I recall it seemed rather young adult-ish), and the strange allegory The Man Who Was Thursday (I'm still not sure what Chesterton was getting at, but it's certainly a wild ride)

 

[Extollager]

I think that I might not be the only reader who would find -- if the nostalgia factor is removed -- that a great deal of the books in the "series proper" would not hold up.

For example, when I was 16 or so I would have said Dunsany, one of the most-emphasized authors in the series (6 books plus presence in several of the others), was one of my favorite authors; I never read him now and doubt that I would enjoy most of his work much any more. He was a confectioner, an anti-Tolkien -- where Tolkien lavished great pains on the consistency and depth of his imagined world, Dunsany flaunts the insubstantial quality of his. Almost nobody can finish Hodgson's The Night Land. A few months ago I tried to reread Excalibur -- just could not stick with it. I haven't kept all the books in the series that I used to own, and several of the ones I bought back in the 1970s are ones I still haven't read and probably never will read. I've read something approaching 30 books by Rider Haggard, yet I didn't keep my copy of The World's Desire, the first of two Haggard items in the series!

However, the George MacDonald material is great (except for "The Wise Woman"/"The Lost Princess") , and The Man Who Was Thursday seems to me an imperishable masterpiece. I've read three of the four Morris romances and think pretty well of them. Some of the others probably deserve a revisit -- it would be interesting to see how they hold up.

 

[j d worthington]

On Dunsany -- he wasn't just a "confectioner", though he did deliberately cultivate that dreamlike, ethereal quality to his earliest fantasies. Nonetheless, he also made pointed commentary about the world in no few of the stories, and the air of cosmicism is present in quite a few. Though on the surface his work may seem insubstantial, I would argue that it is often really anything but, as it is, ultimately, the reaction of a poetic sensibility to the wonder (and sometimes tedium) of the world.

Beyond that, the sheer power of his imagery is often quite stirring; his sense of pathos is often very strong (particularly in such a story as "The Highwayman"), he could unexpectedly turn out a truly terrifying story now and again ("The Ghosts"), and his use of irony is often among the most mordant in modern literature.

All these qualities are to be seen in the Ballantine volumes, though to be frank, they are even more evident when one reads the original collections themselves. (His novels are a rather different matter, as it doesn't seem to matter whether it is an older or newer edition, so long as the text is accurate.)

On the other hand, I will agree that not everything in the "series proper" is exactly a sterling work. The Sorcerer's Ship, for example, I found to be rather a disappointment (though I did like a large portion of Beyond the Golden Stair); some of the anthologies Lin put together were more than a bit of a hodge-podge; I don't feel The Lost Continent really belonged at all, save perhaps in an historical perspective -- not really the series' intent, but....; and for all my fondness in some respects for the Walton volumes, I've always felt they were rather out of place here. And as for the adaptation of the Orlando Furioso......

Still, I'd say the bulk of the series is actually quite good, and a very good example of how broad the field of fantasy actually can be, especially to those who are used to only thinking of it along the lines of either Tolkien, Howard, or the modern "names" in the field....

 

[Connavar]

Extollager: I see Lord Dunsany as an author an adult fantasy reader would get more from than a youthful 16 year old reader. So its a shame you dont read him now.

Even if you dont read his stories for the sheer power of the imagery there is a fair amount commentary on the world in his stories. I remember reading a very direct critical story of the way industry ruin the nature. Its not all about cosmicism, poetic sensibility to the wonder of the world. Those are some of his famous collections and not all he wrote.

6 books for Lord Dunsany shows this series way before my time as fantasy reader was pretty good. Seems like many important early fantasy authors.

Also its pretty unkind to compare Hodgson weaker infamous Night Land to more highly rated stories by Lord Dunsany,MacGonald, Morris, Chesterton. Some of those authors are very pulpy and some are very literary talented.

P.S Sorry JD for using some of your words that describe Dunsany so well.

 

[Sourdust]

He was a confectioner, an anti-Tolkien -- where Tolkien lavished great pains on the consistency and depth of his imagined world, Dunsany flaunts the insubstantial quality of his.

This may be a question of personal temperament, but I don't think I'm alone in considering Dunsany a far superior prose stylist to Tolkien. Of course, they were doing very different things: Dunsany was more of a prose poet than a novelist, and he does treat his characters, to the extent that there are any, like ornamental counters (cf. the similarly ornamental Clark Ashton Smith). (Let us remember he was also a chess champion.) I think he needs to be appreciated against the backdrop of the decadent 1890s: the high artifice of Wilde and Yeats, that sense of sophisticated, world-weary languor.

Tolkien is more wholesome and rugged, more steeped in medieval sources, and represents a more earnestly Christian tradition (although he was also influenced by the Marxist Morris). Personally I find him plodding and dull, but then I am not particularly interested in long-form saga narratives.

(EDIT: I'm echoing Connavar as well as J.D.)

 

[j d worthington]

As someone who is a fan of both writers, I would agree that Dunsany and Tolkien were doing quite different things; however, I think "plodding and dull" don't really apply save in some isolated sections. Given that I've been recently going through a fair amount of his work (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and currently -- albeit slowly, due to my crowded schedule -- The Lord of the Rings), I'd say he actually has a quite varied range stylistically; sometimes quite simple and almost "surface", but not infrequently extremely poetic and full of beauty. This latter quality shows up more in the later portions of LotR rather than the earlier chapters, and is very much in evidence in The Silmarillion and large portions of The History of Middle-earth, but either of these (or, for that matter, the other "voices" he uses in other works, from his essays to "Smith of Wootton Major", etc.), are quite carefully chosen and often exquisitely modulated.

Dunsany, on the other hand, tended in his early fantasies toward a particular type of style and manner, which gradually shifted as the collections go on, eventually gaining more of a satiric or ironic tone which allowed him to address various topics with a rather wider range.

Connavar: Not a problem at all; though I'm not sure I'd quite agree on The Night Land being termed "infamous" save in certain respects. It still remains a landmark in the history of fantasy and the weird tale, and has its following (albeit small). However, it isn't one I'd suggest as his best-written, though the vision is utterly magnificent.

 

[Randy M.]

Just like to put a word in for Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. I finally read the book 10-12 years ago and found it awe-inspiring, a collection that lives up the description, weird tales.


Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

Has anyone read The Dream of X, which, as I understand it, is an abridgement of Hodgson's The Night Land? If so -- thoughts?

I have tried to read the latter at least twice. One gets past the romantic idyll at the beginning and into the somber weird invention and feels that here is indeed a classic of the strange story. Unfortunately, I have, so far, found myself unable to persevere through the second volume of the Ballantine 2-book set, although I think on one occasion I tried to take it a few pages at a time -- I thought I could finish it thus. But, alas...

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's read the book through. In my circle of correspondents, only Pierre Comtois, editor of Fungi and possessor of a complete Ballantine Fantasy series, has managed to do that, so far as I know...

 

[j d worthington]

I did read The Night Land all the way through, though this was about 30 years ago, when I had a copy of the Arkham House edition (which, as I recall, suffered from some very odd typos). Never read the abridged Ballantine edition (yet), though I have it... I hope to do so sometime in the (relatively) near future.

The Dream of X... I've got it, in the Night Shade Hodgson set, but have not got around to reading it; it's set up as part of my reading of all the items mentioned in SHiL, which has, unfortunately, been sidetracked for a bit....

 

[Extollager]

I don't have my copies at hand, but my understanding is that the Ballantine 2-pb Night Land is very lightly abridged, whereas Dream of X is -- what? a tenth the length of NL?

I should try yet again to read Night Land through!

 

[Fried Egg]

I read a copy of "The Night Land" that claimed on the front to be the complete and unabridged version but it wasn't a Ballantine edition. Here were my thoughts after reading it. Suffice it to say I didn't think it was very good although the imagery has stayed with me and the memory of it isn't as unpleasant as the reading experience itself was.

 

[Connavar]

Connavar: Not a problem at all; though I'm not sure I'd quite agree on The Night Land being termed "infamous" save in certain respects. It still remains a landmark in the history of fantasy and the weird tale, and has its following (albeit small). However, it isn't one I'd suggest as his best-written, though the vision is utterly magnificent.

Calling it infamous was too much of overstatement on my part, i meant The Night Land has a reputation a landmark in fantasy, weird tale but i have seen many readers of today dont rate it as high some of the other Hodgson stories. Its not known as you say to be his best written book.

I rate Hodgson very highly so far myself mostly for his weird-horror stories. The House on the Borderland was not perfect but it was wonderfully weird, full of cosmic imagination.

 

[j d worthington]

I'd say that both are a fairly good assessment. Hodgson was uneven, even in his shorter works; but he definitely had the true gift. It's just a shame that he didn't live long enough to hone it to perfection....

 

[james lecky]

The Night Land is a hard, but rewarding read. The Dream of X is an excellent abridgement, with all the power of the original but without the same inherent difficulties.

Carter's Imaginary Worlds is a great book of criticism if more than a little dated now. Essential reading, I reckon.

 

[Connavar]

I'd say that both are a fairly good assessment. Hodgson was uneven, even in his shorter works; but he definitely had the true gift. It's just a shame that he didn't live long enough to hone it to perfection....

I thought he was at his best the first stories i have read of him that was those sea monster short stories, "Sargasso Sea Mythos", the authentic nautical details along with wonderfully creepy stories.

When i read in his biography that he did at 41 in WWI i cursed the war like it was fresh news.

 

[j d worthington]

I feel much the same way about Fitz-James O'Brien, who died in the American Civil war at the age of 33. Not so well known, yet some of his work is very powerful.

And yes, Hodgson was always extremely strong when it came to giving an authentic feel of life on the sea. He was also one of the best for evoking the eeriness and mystery it holds, as well....

 

[Extollager]

Here's something

The Alphabet Library: K is for Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat - Telegraph

about Ernest Bramah, who contributed a couple of books to the BAF series.