Eric Rucker Eddison
Encyclopedia
Eric Rücker Eddison was an English civil servant and author, writing under the name "E.R. Eddison."
, Eddison's early education came from a series of private tutors, whom he shared with the young Arthur Ransome
. Ransome recalls Eddison's daring and machiavellian methods of getting rid of unpopular teachers in his autobiography. Afterwards Eddison was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge and joined the Board of Trade in 1906, retiring in 1938 to work full time on his fiction. During a distinguished career he was appointed CMG in 1924 and CB
in 1929 for public service with the Board of Trade
. He and his wife had one child, a daughter. Their son-in-law, a Royal Air Force
pilot, died in the Second World War.
(1922) and for three volumes set in the imaginary world Zimiamvia, known as the Zimiamvian Trilogy
: Mistress of Mistresses
(1935), A Fish Dinner in Memison
(1941), and The Mezentian Gate
(1958).
These early works of high fantasy
drew strong praise from J. R. R. Tolkien
, C. S. Lewis
, and Ursula K. Le Guin
. Tolkien generally approved Eddison's literary style, but found the underlying philosophy rebarbative; while Eddison in turn thought Tolkien's views "soft". Other admirers of Eddison's work included James Stephens
, who wrote the introduction to the 1922 edition; Robert Silverberg
, who described The Worm Ouroboros as "the greatest high fantasy of them all"; and Clive Barker
.
Eddison's books are written in a meticulously recreated Jacobean
prose style, seeded throughout with fragments, often acknowledged but often frankly stolen, from his favorite authors and genres: Homer
and Sappho
, Shakespeare
and Webster
, Norse Saga
and French medieval lyric. Critic Andy Sawyer has noted that such fragments seem to arise naturally from the "barbarically sophisticated" worlds Eddison has created. The books exhibit a thoroughly aristocratic sensibility; heroes and villains alike maintain an Olympian indifference to convention. Fellow fantasy author Michael Moorcock
wrote that Eddison's characters, particularly his villains, are more vivid than Tolkien's. Others have observed that while it is historically accurate to depict the great of the world trampling on the lower classes, Eddison's characters often treat their subjects with arrogance and insolence, and this is depicted as part of their greatness. Indeed, at the end of The Worm Ouroboros
, the heroes, finding peace dull, pray for – and get – the revival of their enemies, so that they may go and fight them again. Fantasy historian Brian Attebery
notes that "Eddison's fantasies uphold a code that is unbashedly Nietzschean; had he written after World War II, his enthusiasm for supermen and heroic conflict might perhaps have been tempered".
The Zimiamvia books were conceived not as a trilogy but as part of a larger work left incomplete by Eddison's death. The Mezentian Gate itself is unfinished, though Eddison provided summaries of the missing chapters shortly before his death. Some additional material from this book was published for the first time in the volume Zimiamvia: a Trilogy (1992).
Eddison wrote three other books: Poems, Letters, and Memories of Philip Sidney Nairn (1916), Styrbiorn the Strong (1926) and Egil's Saga (1930). The first was his tribute to a Trinity College
friend,a poet, who died in his youth during World War I
. The other two relate to the saga literature
; the first is a retelling of Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa
(alluded to in Eyrbyggja Saga
and Heimskringla
), while the second is a direct translation from Egil's saga, supplemented with extensive notes, some which explain Eddison's aesthetic and philosophical outlook.
Biography
Born in Adel, LeedsAdel, Leeds
Adel is a suburb in North Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is situated between Cookridge, Holt Park, Weetwood and Alwoodley. To the north are the villages of Arthington and Bramhope and the market town of Otley...
, Eddison's early education came from a series of private tutors, whom he shared with the young Arthur Ransome
Arthur Ransome
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...
. Ransome recalls Eddison's daring and machiavellian methods of getting rid of unpopular teachers in his autobiography. Afterwards Eddison was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge and joined the Board of Trade in 1906, retiring in 1938 to work full time on his fiction. During a distinguished career he was appointed CMG in 1924 and CB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
in 1929 for public service with the Board of Trade
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions...
. He and his wife had one child, a daughter. Their son-in-law, a Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
pilot, died in the Second World War.
Writing
Eddison is best known for the early romance The Worm OuroborosThe Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros is a heroic high fantasy novel by Eric Rücker Eddison, first published in 1922. The book describes the protracted war between the domineering King Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland in an imaginary world that appears mainly medieval and partly reminiscent of Norse sagas...
(1922) and for three volumes set in the imaginary world Zimiamvia, known as the Zimiamvian Trilogy
Zimiamvian Trilogy
The Zimiamvian Trilogy is the title given to a collection of three novels by the author E. R. Eddison.- Books in the trilogy :*Mistress of Mistresses*A Fish Dinner in Memison*The Mezentian Gate...
: Mistress of Mistresses
Mistress of Mistresses
Mistress of Mistresses is the first novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison. It centers on political intrigues between the nobles and rulers of the Three Kingdoms of Rerek, Meszria and Fingiswold, following the death of King Mezentius, an extraordinary ruler who has held sway over...
(1935), A Fish Dinner in Memison
A Fish Dinner in Memison
A Fish Dinner in Memison is the second novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison.The story consists of alternating sections set on Earth and in Zimiamvia. The Earth sections focus on the romance of Edward Lessingham and his wife Mary...
(1941), and The Mezentian Gate
The Mezentian Gate
The Mezentian Gate is the third novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison. It is primarily a history of the rule of the fictional King Mezentius , and his methods of gaining and holding the Three Kingdoms of Fingiswold, Meszria and Rerek in sway.Published posthumously, The Mezentian...
(1958).
These early works of high fantasy
High fantasy
High fantasy or epic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds. High fantasy was brought to fruition through the work of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, whose major fantasy works were published in the 1950s...
drew strong praise from J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
, C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, and Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
. Tolkien generally approved Eddison's literary style, but found the underlying philosophy rebarbative; while Eddison in turn thought Tolkien's views "soft". Other admirers of Eddison's work included James Stephens
James Stephens (author)
James Stephens was an Irish novelist and poet.James Stephens wrote many retellings of Irish myths and fairy tales. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humor and lyricism...
, who wrote the introduction to the 1922 edition; Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
, who described The Worm Ouroboros as "the greatest high fantasy of them all"; and Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
.
Eddison's books are written in a meticulously recreated Jacobean
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...
prose style, seeded throughout with fragments, often acknowledged but often frankly stolen, from his favorite authors and genres: Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
and Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
, Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
, Norse Saga
Norse saga
The sagas are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, the battles that took place during the voyages, about migration to Iceland and of feuds between Icelandic families...
and French medieval lyric. Critic Andy Sawyer has noted that such fragments seem to arise naturally from the "barbarically sophisticated" worlds Eddison has created. The books exhibit a thoroughly aristocratic sensibility; heroes and villains alike maintain an Olympian indifference to convention. Fellow fantasy author Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
wrote that Eddison's characters, particularly his villains, are more vivid than Tolkien's. Others have observed that while it is historically accurate to depict the great of the world trampling on the lower classes, Eddison's characters often treat their subjects with arrogance and insolence, and this is depicted as part of their greatness. Indeed, at the end of The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros is a heroic high fantasy novel by Eric Rücker Eddison, first published in 1922. The book describes the protracted war between the domineering King Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland in an imaginary world that appears mainly medieval and partly reminiscent of Norse sagas...
, the heroes, finding peace dull, pray for – and get – the revival of their enemies, so that they may go and fight them again. Fantasy historian Brian Attebery
Brian Attebery
Brian Attebery is an academic writer on science fiction and fantasy fiction. He is professor of English at Idaho State University. His 1979 doctorate from Brown University was in American Civilization...
notes that "Eddison's fantasies uphold a code that is unbashedly Nietzschean; had he written after World War II, his enthusiasm for supermen and heroic conflict might perhaps have been tempered".
The Zimiamvia books were conceived not as a trilogy but as part of a larger work left incomplete by Eddison's death. The Mezentian Gate itself is unfinished, though Eddison provided summaries of the missing chapters shortly before his death. Some additional material from this book was published for the first time in the volume Zimiamvia: a Trilogy (1992).
Eddison wrote three other books: Poems, Letters, and Memories of Philip Sidney Nairn (1916), Styrbiorn the Strong (1926) and Egil's Saga (1930). The first was his tribute to a Trinity College
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
friend,a poet, who died in his youth during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The other two relate to the saga literature
Icelandic literature
Icelandic literature refers to literature written in Iceland or by Icelandic people. It is best known for the sagas written in medieval times, starting in the 13th century. As Icelandic and Old Norse are almost the same, and because Icelandic works constitute most of Old Norse literature, Old Norse...
; the first is a retelling of Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa
Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa
Styrbjarnar þáttr Svíakappa is a short story, a þáttr on the Swedish claimant and Jomsviking Styrbjörn the Strong preserved in the Flatey Book ....
(alluded to in Eyrbyggja Saga
Eyrbyggja saga
Eyrbyggja saga is one of the Icelanders' sagas. The name means the saga of the inhabitants of Eyrr, which is a farm on Snæfellsnes on Iceland. The name is slightly misleading as it deals also with the clans of Þórsnes and Alptafjörðr. The most central character is Snorri Þorgrímsson or Snorri goði...
and Heimskringla
Heimskringla
Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...
), while the second is a direct translation from Egil's saga, supplemented with extensive notes, some which explain Eddison's aesthetic and philosophical outlook.
Zimiamvia Trilogy
- Mistress of MistressesMistress of MistressesMistress of Mistresses is the first novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison. It centers on political intrigues between the nobles and rulers of the Three Kingdoms of Rerek, Meszria and Fingiswold, following the death of King Mezentius, an extraordinary ruler who has held sway over...
(1935). London: Faber and Faber. - A Fish Dinner in MemisonA Fish Dinner in MemisonA Fish Dinner in Memison is the second novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison.The story consists of alternating sections set on Earth and in Zimiamvia. The Earth sections focus on the romance of Edward Lessingham and his wife Mary...
(1941). New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. - The Mezentian GateThe Mezentian GateThe Mezentian Gate is the third novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison. It is primarily a history of the rule of the fictional King Mezentius , and his methods of gaining and holding the Three Kingdoms of Fingiswold, Meszria and Rerek in sway.Published posthumously, The Mezentian...
(1958). London: Curwen Press.
- Zimiamvia: a TrilogyZimiamvian TrilogyThe Zimiamvian Trilogy is the title given to a collection of three novels by the author E. R. Eddison.- Books in the trilogy :*Mistress of Mistresses*A Fish Dinner in Memison*The Mezentian Gate...
(1992). New York: Dell Publishing. ISBN 0-440-50300-0.
Other
- Poems, Letters, and Memories of Philip Sidney Nairn (1916). London: Printed for Private Circulation.
- Egil's Saga (1930). London: Cambridge University Press.
- Styrbiorn the Strong (1926). London: Jonathan Cape.
External links
- The Works of E. R. Eddison – A comprehensive site devoted to the man and his works (currently incomplete).
- Fan page