Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice

Infobox Book |
name = Jurgen
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Dust-jacket of "Jurgen"
author = James Branch Cabell
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = The Biography of Manuel
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = McBride
release_date = 1919
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = ix, 368 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Chivalry
followed_by = The Line of Love

"Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice" is a 1919 fantasy book by James Branch Cabell - the eighth among some fifty-two books written by this author - which gained fame (or notoriety, in the view of some) shortly after its publication.

The eponymous hero, who considers himself a "monstrous clever fellow", embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife.

The novel was denounced by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice; they attempted to bring a prosecution for obscenity. The case went on for two years before Cabell and his publishers won: the "indecencies" were double entendres that also had a perfectly decent interpretation, though it appeared that what had actually offended the prosecution most was a joke about papal infallibility.

Cabell took an author's revenge: the revised edition of 1926 included a previously "lost" passage in which the hero is placed on trial by the Philistines, with a large dung-beetle as the chief prosecutor. He also wrote a short book, "Taboo", in which he thanks John H. Sumner and the Society for Suppression of Vice for generating the publicity that gave his career a boost.

Aleister Crowley dubbed Jurgen one of the "epoch-making masterpieces of philosophy" in 1929, [ [http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/confess/chapter7.html The Confessions of Aleister Crowley ] ] even though the book contains a parody of Crowley's Gnostic Mass. [ [http://www.billheidrick.com/tlc1998/tlc0698.htm Thelema Lodge Calendar for June 1998 e.v ] ] Crowley's famous phrase from "The Book of the Law", "There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt" ["Liber AL", III:60] is also parodized as "There is no law in Cocaigne save, Do that which seems good to you." ["Jurgen", ch. XXII]

Robert A. Heinlein self-consciously patterned his best-known novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land", after Jurgen, and the title and themes of his 1984 novel "" also show Cabell's influence.

Footnotes

References

*cite book | last=Bleiler | first=Everett | authorlink=Everett F. Bleiler | title=The Checklist of Fantastic Literature | location=Chicago | publisher=Shasta Publishers | pages=70 | date=1948

External links

* [http://home.earthlink.net/~davidrolfe/jurgen.htm "Notes on Jurgen"] ; Text of footnotes and references collected by enthusiasts in 1928, augmented by modern additions
*
* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/CABELL/contents.htm HTML etext at the University of Virginia]