The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales

Infobox Book |
name = The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Richard Garnett
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Fantasy short stories
publisher = T. Fisher Unwin
pub_date = 1888
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 346 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales" is a collection of fantasy short stories by Richard Garnett, generally considered a classic in the genre. It was first published in hardcover by T. Fisher Unwin in 1888. A "new and augmented edition" was published by John Lane in 1903. The original edition of the book collected sixteen tales by the author; the 1903 edition added twelve more. In this form the collection continued to be reprinted and available through 1911. Its importance in the history of fantasy literature was recognized by the inclusion of two of its tales ("The Poet of Panopolis" and "The City of Philosophers") in the anthology "Discoveries in Fantasy", edited by Lin Carter and published by Ballantine Books as the forty-third volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in March, 1972. Carter intended to reissue the complete collection as a volume in the series, though this hope was not realized.

Its title notwithstanding, the collection "has nothing to do with the Norse gods--although it draws upon everything else, from Arabic legends and Chinese fairy tales to Roman history and Greek mythology." [Lin Carter, ed. "Discoveries in Fantasy", Ballantine Books, 1972, p. 61.] The title story actually concerns the release of Prometheus from the torture to which he was sentenced by Zeus upon the ultimate eclipse of Greek paganism by Christianity.

Contents

Stories added in the 1903 edition are indented.
*"The Twilight of the Gods"
*"The Potion of Lao-Tsze"
*"Abdallah the Adite"
*"Ananda the Miracle-Worker"
*"The City of Philosophers"
*"The Demon Pope"
*"The Cupbearer":*The Wisdom of the Indians"
*"The Dumb Oracle"
*"Duke Virgil":*"The Claw":*"Alexander the Ratcatcher":*"The Rewards of Industry"
*"Madam Lucifer":*"The Talismans"
*"The Elixir of Life"
*"The Poet of Panopolis"
*"The Purple Head":*"The Firefly":*"Pan's Wand":*"A Page From the Book of Folly"
*"The Bell of St. Euschemon"
*"Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo":*"The Philosopher and the Butterflies":*"Truth and Her Companions":*"The Three Palaces":*"New Readings in Biography"
*"The Poison-Maid"
*Notes

References

Copyright

The copyright for this story has expired in the United States, and thus now resides in the public domain. The text is available via Project Gutenberg.

External links

*gutenberg|no=10095|name=The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales The 1903 edition.
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=DZULAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Twilight+of+the+Gods Another etext of the 1903 edition]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=mLh3Uyl5JLAC&pg=PA9&dq=Richard+Garnett+%22Twilight+of+the+Gods%22+date:1887-1889&as_brr=1 An etext of the 1888 edition]