The Gods of Pegana by Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Horror

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (1878 - 1957), 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 oeuvre 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. Born and raised in London, to the second-oldest title (created 1439) 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. Yeats and Lady Gregory, received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, was chess and pistol-shooting champion of Ireland and travelled and hunted extensively.

There be islands in the Central Sea, whose waters are bounded by no shore and where no ships come -- this is the faith of their people. In the mists before the Beginning, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode through the mists to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI and said: "Now make gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine." Who it was that won the cast and whether it was Fate or whether Chance that went through the mists before the Beginning to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI -- none knoweth.More than eighty books of Lord Dunsany's work were published and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.