It happens to wonder where great masters of literature have found inspiration to give life to their own dialectic, or to wonder which previous authors have contributed to shaping their imagination. Even big names like Clark or Lovecraft, considered to be science fiction and horror milestones, were readers and began their storytelling journey as mere readers. And they too, of course, had a reference author: Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, eighteenth Lord Dunsany. A high-sounding name that stands out on the cover of The book of wonders and other phantasmagorias, one of the latest volumes published by Mondadori to boast the high-sounding title of Drago.
There could not, in fact, be another series published by Mondadori anymore adapted some Dragons to propose to readers a dream narrative like that of Lord Dunsany. Reading a Mondadori Dragon, in fact, is not a simple reading, but a living and palpable experience that leads us to get to know the work and author better. The editorial contents of this type of publication are miniature essays that not only enhance and clarify the essential points of what
we are going to read, but have the merit of giving a historical and cultural framework that allows the reader to better understand the environment in which certain works are born.
The Book of Wonders and other phantasmagories, a journey to the roots of fantasy
A feature of these editions appreciated for example in The Tales of Arthur C. Clarke, but that in The Book of Wonders and Other Phantasmagoria becomes even more central. Telling Lord Dunsany's fiction, given the influence it had on subsequent authors, is a complex experience but necessary to define a characteristic style that seems not to have been affected by
the passage of time.
