Time and the Gods

Book of short stories by Lord Dunsany (1906)

For the 2000 omnibus which contains this collection, see Time and the Gods (omnibus).

Time and the Gods

First edition

Author| Lord Dunsany
Illustrator| Sidney Sime
Language| English
Genre| Fantasy
Publisher| William Heinemann

Publication date

| 1906
Publication place| United Kingdom
Media type| Print (hardback)
Preceded by| The Gods of Pegāna
Followed by| The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories

Time and the Gods is the second book by Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others. It is a collection of short stories linked by Dunsany's invented pantheon of deities who dwell in Pegāna. It was preceded by his earlier collection The Gods of Pegāna and followed by some stories in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories. Dunsany included a brief preface in the original edition and added a new introduction to the 1922 edition.

The book was first published in hardcover by William Heinemann in September, 1906, and has been reprinted a number of times since. It was issued by the Modern Library in an unauthorised combined edition with The Book of Wonder under the latter's title in 1918.

The book was illustrated by Dunsany's preferred artist Sidney Sime, who provided ten full-page black and white illustrations,[1] the originals of which are still at Dunsany Castle. These were present in the 1906 and 1922 editions, not in the unauthorised collections and not in most modern reproductions.

The title is thought to have been influenced by Algernon Swinburne, who wrote the line "Time and the Gods are at strife" in his 1866 poem "Hymn to Proserpine".[original research?]

## Contents

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* "Preface"
* "Time and the Gods"
* "The Coming of the Sea"
* "A Legend of the Dawn"
* "The Vengeance of Men"
* "When the Gods Slept"
* "The King That Was Not"
* "The Cave of Kai"
* "The Sorrow of Search"
* "The Men of Yarnith"
* "For the Honour of the Gods"
* "Night and Morning"
* "Usury"
* "Mlideen"
* "The Secret of the Gods"
* "The South Wind"
* "In the Land of Time"
* "The Relenting of Sardinac"
* "The Jest of the Gods"
* "The Dreams of the Prophet"
* "The Journey of the King"

## Reception

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The Freeman's Journal described Time and the Gods as "the product of a somewhat bizarre, but not infertile imagination". The review read the work allegorically as a statement on the decline of faith, and attacked it as materialistic, decadent, unhealthy, and unpleasant.[1]

## References

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1. ^ a b "An Irish Peer and "The Immortals"". Freeman's Journal. 10 November 1906. JSTOR 48536155. Retrieved 10 September 2023.

## Sources

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* Joshi, S. T. (1993). Lord Dunsany: a Bibliography / by S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 2.

## External links

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*   * Time and the Gods at Project Gutenberg
* Time and the Gods public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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Lord Dunsany

List of works

Original
collections|

* The Gods of Pegāna
* Time and the Gods
* The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories
* A Dreamer's Tales
* The Book of Wonder
* Fifty-One Tales
* The Last Book of Wonder
* Tales of Three Hemispheres
* The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens
* Jorkens Remembers Africa
* Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey
* The Fourth Book of Jorkens
* The Man Who Ate the Phoenix
* The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories
* Jorkens Borrows Another Whiskey
* The Last Book of Jorkens

Posthumous
collections|

* At the Edge of the World
* Beyond the Fields We Know
* Over the Hills and Far Away
* The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer, and Other Fantasms
* Time and the Gods
* The Collected Jorkens
* In the Land of Time, and Other Fantasy Tales

Drama|

* Five Plays
* The Ginger Cat and Other Lost Plays

Novels|

* Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley
* The King of Elfland's Daughter
* The Charwoman's Shadow
* The Curse of the Wise Woman

Poetry|

* Fifty Poems
* Verses Dedicatory

Short stories|

* "Chu-Bu and Sheemish"
* "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth"
* "The Hoard of the Gibbelins"
* "Idle Days on the Yann"

Characters|

* Joseph Jorkens

Related|

* Sidney Sime (preferred artist)
* John Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (father)
* Reginald Drax (brother)
* Dunsany Castle
* Edward Plunkett, 20th Baron of Dunsany (grandson and literary heir)

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