Synopses & Reviews
An old woman who spends her days scrubbing the floors might be an unlikely damsel in distress, but Lord Dunsany proves once again his mastery of the fantastical. The Charwoman's Shadow is a beautiful tale of a sorcerer's apprentice who discovers his master's nefarious usage of stolen shadows, and vows to save the charwoman from her slavery.
Synopsis
Before Middle-earth was a glimmer in Tolkien's eye, Lord Dunsany was weaving spellbinding tales of wonder, wizardry, and adventure in brilliantly imagined mythical worlds. His work would ultimately inspire generations of fantasy authors -- including Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Peter Beagle, and Fritz Leiber.
The Dunsany magic is in full flower in "The Charwoman's Shadow," the tale of an impoverished nobleman's son apprenticed to a magician. But this sorcerer has sinister motives: In exchange for an education in the mystical arts, the young man is required to surrender his shadow. Dire consequences ensue -- and when the hero learns an old cleaning woman has also had her shadow claimed by the evil magician, he sets out to recover it ... at any cost.
About the Author
Lord Dunsany was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, the eighteenth baron of an ancient line. He hunted lions in Africa, taught English in Athens, fought in the Boer and Kaiserian wars, and was wounded in the service of his country. As senior peer of Ireland, he saw three sovereigns crowned at Westminster; part of the renaissance of Irish drama, he hobnobbed with Yeats and Synge and Lady Gregory during the great days of Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He was peer, sportsman, soldier, playwright, globe-trotter, and once chess champion of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He wrote more than sixty books before his death in 1957 and influenced some of the greatest writers of our time.