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Published 31 October 2007
in Philadelphia and Montclair
by Temporary Culture.
Critical monograph examining the writings of Virginia fantasist
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958), author of Jurgen .
6 x 9 inches, viii+56 pp.
First issue, 17 numbered copies hand
sewn and bound in a green
cloth binding incorporating the original cloth covered
boards of the Storisende edition, signed by Michael Swanwick and Barry Humphries,
each copy with a leaf signed by James
Branch
Cabell. By subscription only ; sold out before publication.
Trade issue, 200 copies in paper
covers.
Available at World Fantasy Convention 2007.
ISBN : 0-9764660-3-1 / ISBN-13 : 978-0-9764660-3-1
$15 (add $5.00 for shipping within U.S.) ; £15 postpaid in U.K.
(other foreign orders add $13.00 for shipping). Trade
discount
available.
Payment by dollar cheque on U.S. bank or money order only. 
Orders and inquiries to:
Henry Wessells
P.O. Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072 USA
Electronym : wessells@aol.com
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What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage ?
James Branch Cabell
in the Twenty-first Century
by
Michael Swanwick
with a preface
Jurgen Down Under
by Barry Humphries
It is hard to imagine today the magnitude of James Branch Cabell’s
fame in the early part of the last century. Cabell’s books were Mark Twain’s
chief reading in the great humorist’s declining years. Theodore Roosevelt
received him at the White House. The occultist Aleister Crowley harried
him with fan letters. H. L. Mencken was his advocate. Sinclair
Lewis, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, mentioned him as
one of a number of writers who might reasonably have won it.
Yet he died as good as forgotten.
MICHAEL SWANWICK is author of a monograph on the fantastical literature
of Hope Mirrlees. His novels include Bones of the Earth and In The
Drift , and his short story collections include Gravity’s Angels and The Dog
Said Bow-Wow . The front cover, Storisende : collage for Michael Swanwick ,
forms part of the Catalogue of Unique Works in the Library and Private
Collections of Michael Swanwick (forthcoming).
BARRY HUMPHRIES is an Australian National Treasure, known worldwide
for creating the role of Dame
Edna. "movingly intense" — John Clute, Excessive Candour, SFW 3 Sept 07
"This is the best literary monograph I have read in a long time."
— Darrell Schweitzer, NYRSF April 2008
"Swanwick is an engaging critic, and his enthusiasm for what he likes is infectious . . . . There is gold in the past as well as in the present, and it’s nice to have writers like Swanwick point out the treasures."
— Douglas A. Anderson
"Cabell is a problematic author [. . .] for
those interested in learning more about Cabell there can hardly be a better
or more readable beginning than Swanwick’s monograph."
— James Sallis, Fantasy & Science
Fiction
"Michael Swanwick has ranged the considerable length . . .
of the Cabell oeuvre, and come back with good news about the good stuff to
be
found there. If, say, the Library of America decides
it needs a suitable editor to bring James Branch Cabell into the Black Jacket
Club, I know just the man for the job."
— Steven Hart, author of The Last Three Miles
". . . a keen eye for Cabell’s wit, inventiveness, and (yes) ribald good humor"
— Gregory Feeley, Philadelphia Inquirer
.
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