- CABELL, James Branch
- (1879-1958)US writer, mostly of mannered, witty and in later life sometimes rather enervated fantasies set in a Land of Fable Europe and elsewhere; in some cases long after they were first published, he assimilated a large number of these fantasies as episodes in the Biography of the Life of Manuel. The imaginary kingdom of Poictesme is a central thread running through the more than 20 volumes of the series, and ties the whole - however arbitrarily - into a consistent purview. The stated (but not chronologically consistent) proper ordering of the sequence is: Beyond Life (1919); Figures of Earth (1921); The Silver Stallion (1926); The Music from Behind the Moon (1926) and The White Robe (1928), both assembled along with The Way of Ecben (1928) as The Witch-Woman (omni 1948); The Soul of Melicent (1913; rev vt Domnei 1920); Chivalry (1909; rev 1921); Jurgen (1919); The Line of Love (coll of linked stories 1905; rev 1921); The High Place (1923); Gallantry (1907; rev 1928); Something about Eve (1927); The Certain Hour (1916); The Cords of Vanity (1909; rev 1920); From the Hidden Way (1916; rev 1924); The Jewel Merchants (1921); The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck (1915); The Eagle's Shadow (1904; rev 1923); The Cream of the Jest (1917); The Lineage of Lichfield (1922); Straws and Prayer-Books (1924). A second series - Smirt (1934), Smith (1935) and Smire (1937), assembled as The Nightmare has Triplets (omni 1972) - carries the eponym (who is three in one) ever downwards, through universes and incarnations: the effect is ironical.JBC suffered from over-attention after the prosecution of Jurgen (most implausibly) for obscenity, and after his subsequent fame and neglect his more recent advocates - like James BLISH, who was for some time editor of the Cabell Society journal Kalki - perhaps argued too strenuously for his rehabilitation. By now, however, his place in US fiction is secure though not central. His relevance to sf proper derives from his engagingly haughty use of sf tropes - alternate worlds, DYSTOPIAS and UTOPIAS, TIME TRAVEL, and even the building of planets.JCOther works: Taboo (1921 chap); These Restless Heads (1932); The King was in his Counting House (1938); Hamlet had an Uncle (1940); The First Gentleman of America (1942); There Were Two Pirates (1946) and a linked tale, The Devil's Own Dear Son (1949).About the author: James Branch Cabell (1962) by Joe Lee Davis; James Branch Cabell: A Complete Bibliography (1974) by James N. Hall , which includes A Supplement of Current Values of Cabell Books by Nelson BOND ; James Branch Cabell: Centennial Essays (anth 1983) ed M. Thomas Inge and Edgar E. MacDonald.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Encyclopedia. Academic. 2011.
