page_title: Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany
section_title: Literary life
hierarchical_section_title: Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany / Biography / Literary life
caption_attribution_description: Lord Dunsany, author, early 40's age
context_page_description: Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist; his work, mostly in the fantasy genre, was published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than ninety books of his work were published in his lifetime, and both original work and compilations have continued to appear. Dunsany's œuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as plays, novels and essays. He achieved great fame and success with his early short stories and plays, and during the 1910s was considered one of the greatest living writers of the English-speaking world; he is today best known for his 1924 fantasy novel The King of Elfland's Daughter and The Gods of Pegāna, wherein he devised his own fictional pantheon and laid the groundwork for the Fantasy genre. He was the inventor of an asymmetric version of chess called Dunsany's Chess.
  Born and raised in London, to the second-oldest title in the Irish peerage, Dunsany lived much of his life at what may be Ireland's longest-inhabited house, Dunsany Castle near Tara, worked with W. B.
context_section_description: Dunsany's fame arose chiefly from his prolific writings, and he was involved with the Irish Literary Revival. Supporting the Revival, Dunsany was a major donor to the Abbey Theatre, and he moved in Irish literary circles. He was well acquainted with W. B. Yeats (who rarely acted as editor but gathered and published a Dunsany selection), Lady Gregory, Percy French, "AE" Russell, Oliver St John Gogarty, Padraic Colum (with whom he jointly wrote a play) and others. He befriended and supported Francis Ledwidge, to whom he gave the use of his library and Mary Lavin.
  Dunsany made his first literary tour to the United States in 1919 and made further such visits right up to the 1950s, in the early years mostly to the eastern seaboard and later, notably, to California.
  
  Dunsany's own work, and contribution to the Irish literary heritage, was recognised through an honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin.
caption: Lord Dunsany, New York, 1919
exif: {}