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Fantasy Comedy
Fantasy comedy or comic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is primarily humorous in intent and tone. Typically set in imaginary worlds, fantasy comedy often involves puns on, and parodies of, other works of fantasy. Literature The subgenre rose in the nineteenth century. Elements of fantasy comedy can be found in such nineteenth century works as some of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, Charles Dickens' "Christmas Books", and Lewis Carroll's Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Alice books."Humorous Fantasy" in David Pringle,ed, ''The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy'', (pp.31-33). London, Carlton,2006. The first writer to specialize in the subgenre was "Thomas Anstey Guthrie, F. Anstey" in novels such as ''Vice Versa (novel), Vice Versa'' (1882), where magic disrupts Victorian society with humorous results. Anstey's work was popular enough to inspire several imitations, including E. Nesbit's light-hearted children's fantasies, ''The Phoenix and the Carpet'' (1904) a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subgenre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, based on some set of stylistic criteria, as in literary genres, film genres, music genres, comics genres, etc. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility. The proper use of a specific genre is important for a successful transfer of information ( media-adequacy). Critical discussion of genre perhaps began with a classification system for ancient Greek literature, as set out in Aristotle's ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Dunsany
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957), commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consisted of hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, and essays; further works were published posthumously. Having gained a name in the 1910s as a writer in the English-speaking world, he is best known today for the 1924 fantasy novel ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'', and his first book, ''The Gods of Pegāna'', which depicts a fictional pantheon. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre. Born in London as heir to one of the oldest Irish peerages, he was raised partly in Kent, but later lived mainly at Ireland's possibly longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle and Demesne, Dunsany Castle near Tara, Ireland, Tara. He worked with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, and supported the Abbey Theatre and some fellow writers. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sword And Sorcery
Sword and sorcery (S&S), or heroic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of Romance (love), romance, Magic (fantasy), magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. The genre originated from the early-1930s works of Robert E. Howard. While there is a chance example from 1953, Fritz Leiber re-coined the term "sword and sorcery" in the 6 April 1961 issue of the fantasy fanzine ''Ancalagon'', to describe Howard and the stories that were influenced by his works. In parallel with "sword and sorcery", the term "heroic fantasy" is used, although it is a more loosely defined genre. Sword and sorcery tales eschew overarching themes of "good vs evil" in favor of situational conflicts that often pit morally gray characters against one another to enrich themselves, or to defy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are two sword-and-sorcery heroes appearing in stories written by American author Fritz Leiber. They are the protagonists of what are probably Leiber's best-known stories. One of his motives in writing them was to have a couple of fantasy heroes closer to true human nature than the likes of Howard's Conan the Barbarian or Burroughs's Tarzan. Fafhrd is a very tall (nearly ) and strong northern barbarian, skilled at both swordsmanship and singing. The Mouser is a small (not much more than ) mercurial thief, gifted and deadly at swordsmanship (often using a sword in one hand and a long dagger or in the other), as well as a former wizard's apprentice who retains some skill at magic. Fafhrd talks like a romantic, but his strength and practicality usually wins through, while the cynical-sounding Mouser is prone to showing strains of sentiment at unexpected times. Both are rogues, living in a decadent world where only the ruthless and cynical survive. They ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. ( ; December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Along with Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery. Life Fritz Leiber was born December 24, 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, to the actors Fritz Leiber (actor), Fritz Leiber and Virginia Bronson Leiber. For a time, he seemed inclined to follow in his parents' footsteps; the theater and actors feature in his fiction. He spent 1928 touring with his parents' Shakespeare company (Fritz Leiber & Co.) before entering the University of Chicago, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received an undergraduate Ph.B. degree in psychology and physiology or biology with honors in 1932. From 1932 to 1933, he worked as a lay reader and studied as a candidate for the ministry, without taking a degree, at the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, Manhattan, an affiliate of the Episcopal Church (United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulp Magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the Pulp (paper), wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was wide by high, and thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitation fiction, exploitative, and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were incorrectly regarded as pulps, though they have different editorial and production standards and are instead replacements. Modern superhero Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unknown (magazine)
''Unknown'' (also known as ''Unknown Worlds'') was an American pulp magazine, pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. ''Unknown'' was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Astounding Science Fiction'', which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was ''Weird Tales'', which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than ''Weird Tales'', and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel ''Sinister Barrier'', about aliens who own the human race. ''Unknown''s first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to ''Sinister Barrier'', it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doubleday (publisher)
Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897. By 1947, it was the largest book publisher in the United States. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed them through its own stores. In 2009, Doubleday merged with Alfred A. Knopf, Knopf Publishing Group to form the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which, as of 2018, is part of Penguin Random House. History 19th century The firm was founded as Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 by Frank Nelson Doubleday in partnership with Samuel Sidney McClure. McClure had founded the first U.S. newspaper syndicate in 1884 (McClure Syndicate) and the monthly ''McClure's Magazine'' in 1893. One of their first bestsellers was ''The Day's Work'' by Rudyard Kipling, a short story collection that Macmillan published in Britain late in 1898. Other authors published by the company in its early years include W. Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdoms Of Sorcery
''Kingdoms of Sorcery: An Anthology of Adult Fantasy'' is an anthology of fantasy stories, edited by American writer Lin Carter. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in January 1976 as the first of two such anthologies continuing a series of nine assembled by Carter for the ''Ballantine Adult Fantasy series''. Summary The book collects sixteen tales and excerpts from novels from five varieties of fantasy writing, with an overall introduction and notes on the individual authors by Carter. The collection is a companion volume to Carter's later anthology '' Realms of Wizardry'' (1976). Contents *"Magic Casements: An Introduction" (Lin Carter) *I. The Forerunners of Modern Fantasy :*"The History of Babouc the Scythian" (Voltaire) :*"The Palace of Subterranean Fire" - from ''Vathek'' ( William Beckford) :*"The Witch Woman" - from ''Lilith'' (George Macdonald) *II. Fantasy as Saga :*"The Folk of the Mountain Door" (William Morris) :*"A Night-Piece on Ambremerine" - from '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Shea
Harold Shea is the protagonist of five science fantasy stories by the collaborative team of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, as well as later stories by de Camp alone, Christopher Stasheff, Holly Lisle, John Maddox Roberts, Roland J. Green, Frieda A. Murray, Tom Wham, and Lawrence Watt-Evans. De Camp and Stasheff collectively oversaw the continuations. The series is also known as the "Enchanter" series, the "Incomplete Enchanter" series (after the first collection of stories) or the "Compleat Enchanter" series. In the original five stories, psychologist Harold Shea and his colleagues Reed Chalmers, Walter Bayard, and Vaclav Polacek (Votsy) travel to various parallel worlds where ancient myths or old literature are reality. In the course of their travels, other characters are added to the main cast, notably Belphebe and Florimel, who become the wives of Shea and Chalmers, respectively, and Pete Brodsky, a policeman who is accidentally swept up into the chaos. In th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fletcher Pratt
Murray Fletcher Pratt (25 April 1897 – 10 June 1956) was an American people, American List of science fiction authors, writer of history, science fiction, and fantasy. He is best known for his works on naval history and the American Civil War and for fiction written with L. Sprague de Camp. Life and work According to de Camp, Pratt was born near Tonawanda (town), New York, Tonawanda, New York. The son of Robert M. and Alice Horton Pratt, he attended public schools in Buffalo and graduated from high school in 1915 at the Springville-Griffith Institute Central School District, Griffith Institute in Springville, New York, where his father operated a trucking delivery service between Springville and Buffalo. Following high school he attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Hobart College in Geneva, New York, for one year. In February 1916 the Associated Press reported that he had been arrested for burglary in Geneva after a series of midnight cash drawer robberies that alleged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter (June 9, 1930 – February 7, 1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft (for an H. P. Lovecraft parody) and Grail Undwin. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre. Life Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy in his youth, and became broadly knowledgeable in both fields. He was also active in fandom. Carter served in the United States Army (infantry, Korea, 1951–53), and then attended Columbia University and took part in Leonie Adams's Poetry Workshop (1953–54). He was an advertising and publishers' copywriter from 1957 until 1969, when he took up writing full-time. He was also an editorial consultant. During much of his writing career h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
