Lud-in-the-Mist

by Hope Mirrlees

Book Overview

Fairy fruit is being smuggled into Dorimare.

Lud-in-the-Mist, the highly influential early fantasy novel you've never heard of, but praised by numerous authors throughout the years. Originally published in 1926. In its main character, Master Nathaniel Chanticleer, Mirrlees prefigures Bilbo by a decade, in a setting not unlike Hobbiton. More recently the book's influence has been felt most strongly in works such...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1954319010
• ISBN13: 9781954319011
• Release Date: January 2022
• Publisher: Curiouser House Publishing
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Lovely

Hope Mirrlees originally published this marvelous book back in the 1920s, to some acclaim at the time. The book then was forgotten by all except a few lovers of fantasy until it was republished by the now legendary "sign of the unicorn" series put out by Ballentine in the 1960s and early 70s. Many authors have tried, with varying degrees of success, to achieve what Mirrlees does so effortlessly: She brings a true sense of the mystery and wonder to this story of a people who live on the borders of fairlyland. In this book, we learn about Nathaniel Chanticleer and his son. About a people who would rather not see fairyland, but who are in some ways inextricably linked. I don't want to say too much, or give too much away about this wondrous story, but I would like to say that one phrase has stuck with me for a long time: One character accidentally wears yellow to a funeral, and then comments that it was, "after all, a blackish sort of yellow." True words of the genuine synesthete, yes; but also true words of those who have touched the fe. I am just delighted that this is back in print. I hope everyone reads and enjoys it!

By my great-aunt's rump!

The oddness of this story can be detected just by checking out the main character. Most fantasy heroes are not round, stodgy, middle-aged men who are respected pillars of the community. But Hope Mirrlees' enchanting fantasy "Lud-in-the-Mist" defies many such fantasy cliches, written as if "The Hobbit" had been spun up by Lord Dunsany. It's a sweet pastoral story that slowly blossoms out into a very unique story -- there's a little murder mystery, an amusing village of hobbity people, and a quicksilver dream of beautiful fairyland and otherworldly danger. Fairy is forbidden in the town of Lud -- not just fairy creatures and their exquisite fruit, but mentions of them, the dead who walk with them, and the Duke Aubrey who left with them. But all his life, the steadfastly dull Mayor Nathaniel Chanticleer has a lingering longing/fear for a strangely magical musical note. Despite all this, life remains boring and rather pleasant -- until Chanticleer's son Ranulph begins acting strangely, claiming that he's eaten fairy fruit. After Chanticleer sends his son off to a farm for a vacation, the teenage girls at Miss Primrose's Crabapple Academy suddenly seem to go pleasantly nuts, and then race off into the hills. Life seems to seep out of the old town,and Nathaniel must connect the present crises to a past conspiracy, all of which hinges on Fairyland, fairy fruit, and the sinister doctor Endymion Leer. The journey to discover the truth will take him out of the everyday world -- and change him forever. Haunting music, mad dancing, and ethereal meadows filled with fairy people and strange flowers. All through "Lud-in-the-Mist," there's the underlying feeling that there's a frightening, exquisite world that is barely separated from ours. Rather than cliche elves with pointy ears, it relies on a dreamlike atmosphere and faraway lands that are only glimpsed in passing. Originally written in 1926, Hope Mirrlees' third book is an utterly unique experience -- it takes place in a pleasantly ordinary British town and charming pastoral towns, with fairy magic seeping into the cracks. And it's something of a love ode to "fairy" -- even though the inhabitants of Lud cherish their prosperous, staid existance, the the strange and exquisite blooms over the course of the book. And Mirrlees' writing is capable of bringing that to life -- she intertwines a fantasy, a murder mystery and a personal journey into one. The first part of the book is written in a pleasantly cozy, mellow style that focuses on the colourful, staid town of Lud. But as the story blossoms into a tangle of crises and mysteries, Mirrlees' writing becomes more lush, exquisite and haunting. Chanticleer is very reminiscent of Bilbo Baggins -- he's pleasant, boring, stodgy but has a brave, eccentric interior that helps him become a very unusual hero. And the other inhabitants of Lud are similarly engaging and just a little bit quirky -- fairy-struck teenagers, snippy old ladies, the haughty farmer's w

There are Mysteries here...

What a pleasure to have this superb novel in print once more! I can only echo the praise of the previous reviewers on this page, all of whom were obviously touched by this neglected classic as deeply as I was. While there's a glut of fantasy novels available these days, all too many are lacking in true Magic - a poetry both crisp and lyrical, an understated but rich symbolism, a sense of the Mysteries, that is the essence of "Lud-in-the-Mist." Add to that its subtle and delightful characterization, its often cheerfully earthy humor ("By My Great-Aunt's Rump!"), and the sheer beauty of its prose, and you have a book that belongs on any short list of fantasy masterpieces. A book to be read many times, one that takes the reader ever deeper with each reading. May it never be out of print again!

A Neglected Moral Fantasy Masterpiece

Browsing hopefully in a secondhand-bookshop, I accidentally picked out "Lud-in-the-Mist" because of its odd title, and intriguing paperback cover in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series edited by the great Lin Carter. A glance at Carter's introduction, which said how he had been hooked by the book's opening similarly hooked me. Try it! "... beyond the Debatable Hills lay Fairyland ... Social and commercial centre of Dorimare ... Lud-in-the-Mist ... was ten miles from the sea, and fifty from the Elfin Hills."The story concerns a worthy burgher of this prosperous capital (set in a pre-petrol, pre-electricity swords-and-periwig imaginary country), Master Nathaniel Chaunticleer (the literary style, and names of places and characters, are part of the book's charm), and what befalls him when a very special kind of disaster strikes his teenage son Ranulph.The town, Lud-in-the-Mist, is situated at the confluence of two rivers, the Dapple and the larger Dawl. But as a Dorimarite maxim insisted, "The Dapple flows into the Dawl", and the Dapple has its source in Fairyland. The nub is this: Fairyland is regarded by the Dorimarites as an imaginary place, believed in old country folktales to be the the land not merely of fairies but of the dead, the "Silent People". And fairy fruit, which sometimes drifts down the flow of the Dapple, and is sometimes smuggled across the mysterious borders between the two regions is dangerous. Those ordinary Dorimarite citizens who eat fairy fruit are driven to madness, suicide, orgiastic dances, and wild doings under the moon. Yet those who eat it, while admitting that "the fruit produced an agony of mind", also maintain "that for one who had experienced this agony, life would cease to be life without it".Stop.We are on the verge of talking of some kind of desperate dangerous addictive drug, reputed to induce fits of poetry and inspiration - and madness.But this isn't the Heroin-age of the latter half of the 20th century, nor is it the opium-eating 19th century. Hope Mirrlees, who is now remembered only for this book and her friendship with T.S.Eliot, published "Lud-in-the-Mist" in 1926, in the aftermath of World War I. Her subject is not really drugs, and the conflict between a pro-drugs culture and an anti-drugs culture, although much of the book reflects powerfully on this.Rather, Mirrlees is concerned to establish a working link between those alive, and those no longer living, to find a way of building an ordinary mortal life in a world of eternal death. In "The Wasteland" of 1922, Eliot, or his persona, was shocked to see ghostly hordes on London Bridge: "I did not think death had undone so many". Mirrlees, shortly after, writes a novel that struggles to come to terms with the catastrophe of the Western trenches - that is how I see it. The climax of the novel is a seeming invasion from Fairyland. I hope I do not give too much away.This book is a rich, powerful predecessor of anothe