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James Branch Cabell (April 14, 1879 - May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell's surname is often mispronounced "Ka-BELL", he himself pronounced it "CAB-ble". To remind an editor of the correct pronunciation, Cabell composed this rhyme (intended to be spoken, not read): "Tell the rabble my name is Cabell." James Branch Cabell photographed by Carl Van Vechten, April 30, 1935 From the collection of the Library of Congress and in the public domain: http://memory. ...
James Branch Cabell photographed by Carl Van Vechten, April 30, 1935 From the collection of the Library of Congress and in the public domain: http://memory. ...
Photographic self-portrait by Carl Van Vechten, 1934 Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964) was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. ...
April 14 is the 104th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (105th in leap years). ...
1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
May 5 is the 125th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (126th in leap years). ...
1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ...
For other definitions of fantasy see fantasy (psychology). ...
Belles lettres are works of writing that are appreciated for their visual appearance (such as the calligraphy employed), as much as or more so than their actual content. ...
Life
Cabell lived most of his life in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated in 1898 from William and Mary College; worked briefly in New York, and wintered in Florida until his first wife's passing. Nickname River City Motto Sic Itur Ad Astra Location Location in the Commonwealth of Virginia Government Country State County United States Virginia Independent City Mayor L. Douglas Wilder Geographical characteristics Area - Total - Land - Water 62. ...
The College of William and Mary in Virginia is a public, liberal-arts university located in Williamsburg, Virginia. ...
Works
Jurgen In his lifetime he published some fifty-two books, his eighth book, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, (1919) creating a scandal shortly after its publication. The eponymous hero, who considers himself a "monstrous clever fellow", embarks on a journey through ever more fantastic realms, even to hell and heaven. Everywhere he goes, he winds up seducing the local women, even the Devil's wife. The novel was denounced by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice; they attempted to bring a prosecution for obscenity. The case went on for two years before Cabell and his publishers won: the "indecencies" were double entendres that also had a perfectly decent interpretation, though it appeared that what had actually offended the prosecution most was a joke about papal infallibility. Cabell took an author's revenge: the revised edition of 1926 included a previously "lost" passage in which the hero is placed on trial by the Philistines, with a large dung-beetle as the chief prosecutor. He also wrote a short book, Taboo, in which he thanks John H. Sumner and the Society for Suppresion of Vice for generating the publicity that gave his career a boost. 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (SSV) was founded in 1873 by Anthony Comstock and his supporters in the Young Mens Christian Association. ...
In Roman Catholic theology, Papal infallibility is the dogma that the Pope is preserved from error when he solemnly promulgates, or declares, to the Church a decision on faith or morals. ...
1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The historic Philistines (Hebrew plishtim פלשתי×) (see other uses below) were a people who inhabited the southern coast of Canaan around the time of the arrival of the Israelites, their territory being named Philistia in later contexts. ...
Figures of the Earth Other works include Figures of Earth, which tells a story of Manuel the swineherd, a scoundrel who raises to conquer a realm by playing on others' expectations - his motto Mundus Vult Decipi meaning "the world wishes to be deceived". The Silver Stallion is a loose sequel that deals with the creation of the legend of Manuel the Redeemer, in which Manuel is pictured as an infallible hero, an example to which all others should aspire; but some of the former knights of Manuel have not yet died, and remember how things really were.
The rest of the Biography of Manuel All of these books are part of The Biography of Manuel, the story in 18 volumes (or 20 or 22, depending on how works published both separately and jointly are counted) of Dom Manuel and his descendants through many generations. Cabell stated that he considered the Biography to be a single work, and supervised its publication in a single uniform edition, known as the Storisende Edition, published from 1927 to 1930. The Biography of Manuel is a fantasy series by James Branch Cabell. ...
Most of these books take place in a fictional country known as "Poictesme", pronounced "pwa-tem". It was the author's invention to situate Poictesme roughly in the south of France.
After concluding the Biography in 1932, Cabell shortened his pen name to Branch Cabell. The "truncated" name was used for all his new, "post-Biography" publications until the printing of There Were Two Pirates (1946).
Influence Cabell's work was thought of very highly by a number of his peers, including Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, and Jack Woodford. And although now largely forgotten by the general public, his work was remarkably influential on later authors of fantastic fiction. Robert A. Heinlein was greatly inspired by his boldness, and originally described his famous book Stranger in a Strange Land as "a Cabellesque satire", and a later work Job, A Comedy of Justice (with the title derived from Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice) has an appearance of the Slavic god Koschei (who also appeared in Jurgen). Fritz Leiber's Swords of Lankhmar was also influenced by Jurgen. Jack Vance's Dying Earth books show considerable stylistic resemblances to Cabell; Cugel the Clever in those books bears a strong resemblance, not least in his opinion of himself, to Jurgen. Cabell was also a major influence on Neil Gaiman, acknowledged as such in the rear of Gaiman's novels Stardust and American Gods. This thematic and sylistic influence is highly evident in the multi-layered pantheons of Gaiman's most famous work,The Sandman, which have many parallels in Cabell's work, particularly Jurgen. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer. ...
Sinclair Lewis Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 — January 10, 1951) was an American novelist and playwright. ...
H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956), better known as H. L. Mencken, was a twentieth-century journalist, satirist and social critic, a cynic and a freethinker, known as the Sage of Baltimore and the American Nietzsche. He is often regarded as one of the...
Jack Woodford (1894–1971) was a successful pulp novelist and non-fiction author of the 1930s and 1940s. ...
Heinlein autographing at the 1976 Worldcon Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most influential and controversial authors of hard science fiction. ...
Stranger in A Strange Land Cover Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. ...
Job: A Comedy of Justice is a novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1984. ...
In Russian mythology, especially in the Caucasus region, Koschei (Коще́й) is an evil spirit with a terrible appearance, menacing principally young women. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Jack Vance John Holbrook Vance (b. ...
Neil Gaiman (November 2004) Neil Richard Gaiman () (born November 10, 1960, Portchester, Hampshire) is an English Jewish author of numerous science fiction and fantasy works, including many comic books. ...
Stardust (1998) is the second solo prose novel by Neil Gaiman. ...
American Gods is a novel by Neil Gaiman. ...
The Sandman was a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics for 75 issues from 1988 until 1996. ...
There are also references to Cabell himself in the works of many other fantasy and science fiction authors. For example, the Leshy Circuit stories by Larry Niven feature planets and places whose names are taken from Cabell, and his protagonist in A World out of Time is named James Branch Corbell. H. Beam Piper also used names from Cabell for some of his invented planets. Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938) is a US science fiction author. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
From 1969 through 1972, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series returned six of Cabell's novels to print, and elevated his profile in the fantasy genre. Today, many more of his works are available from Wildside Press. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ...
Launched in 1969 (presumably in response to the growing popularity of Tolkiens works), the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series reissued a number of works of fantasy literature, which were out of print or dispersed in back issues of pulp magazines (or otherwise not easily available in the United States), in...
Wildside Press is an independent publishing company located in Maryland. ...
Others Though best known as a fantasist, the plots and characters of his first few novels, The Eagle's Shadow (1904), The Cords of Vanity (1909), and The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck (1915), do not wander out of the everyday, humdrum society of Virginia's beleaguered gentry. But Cabell's signature droll style is clearly in evidence, and in later printings each book would bear a characteristically Cabellian subtitle: A Comedy of Purse-Strings, A Comedy of Shirking, and A Comedy of Limitations, respectively. His later novel, The First Gentleman of America: A Comedy of Conquest (1942) retells the strange career of an American Indian from the shores of the Potomac who sailed away with Spanish explorers, later to return, be made chief of his tribe, and kill all the Spaniards in the new Virginia settlement. Cabell delivered a more concise, historical treatment of the novel's events in The First Virginian, part one of his 1947 work of non-fiction, Let Me Lie, a book on the history of Virginia. Potomac may refer to: Potomac River, which flows through Washington DC and Alexandria VA, USA Potomac, an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA Potomac, a village in Vermilion County, Illinois, USA Potomac, a Native American tribe A general term given to the Washington, D.C./Maryland metropolitan area One...
Other works include:
- The High Place
- Something about Eve
- The Cream of the Jest
- Domnei
- The Nightmare Has Triplets (trilogy comprising Smirt, Smith, and Smire)
- The King Was in His Counting House
- The Devil's Own Dear Son
- Anecdotia Americana (with introduction by J. Mortimer Hall)
At 22, Cabell taught Romance languages (French and Greek) at the College of William and Mary. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1937. Website WM.edu The College of William and Mary in Virginia (also referred to as William and Mary, W&M or simply The College by those close to it) is a small public university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. It is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the...
Cabell died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. In 1970, Virginia Commonwealth University, also located in Richmond, named its main campus library after Cabell. A cerebral hemorrhage or hemorrhagic stroke is a form of stroke that occurs when a blood vessel in the brain ruptures or bleeds. ...
A view of Hollywood Cemetery and Presidents Circle Hollywood Cemetery is a large, sprawling cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, characterized by rolling hills and winding paths overlooking the James River. ...
Virginia Commonwealth University VCU logo Virginia Commonwealth University, or VCU, is a large public American research university with its main campuses located in downtown Richmond, Virginia. ...
Quotations - "...In the early part of the 20th century, there was a fantasy writer named James Branch Cabell who had a theory of writing as magic. His books (highly recommended, especially "Jurgen") are both funny and mythological... and it's easy to see how his process of creating characters was really a process of evocation and invocation." - Philip H Farber
- "Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." -- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion"
- "Once we understand the fundamentals of Mr. Cabell's artistic aims, it is not easy to escape the fact that in Figures of Earth he undertook the staggering and almost unsuspected task of rewriting humanity's sacred books, just as in Jurgen he gave us a stupendous analogue of the ceaseless quest for beauty. For we must accept the truth that Mr. Cabell is not a novelist at all in the common acceptance of the term, but a historian of the human soul. His books are neither documentary nor representational; his characters are symbols of human desires and motives. By the not at all simple process of recording faithfully the projections of his rich and varied imagination, he has written thirteen books, which he accurately terms biography, wherein is the bitter-sweet truth about human life." - Burton Rascoe
- "I have finished Jurgen; a great and beautiful book, and the saddest book I ever read. I don't know why, exactly. The book hurts me - tears me to small pieces - but somehow it sets me free. It says the word that I've been trying to pronounce for so long. It tells me everything I am, and have been, and may be, unsparingly... I don't know why I cry over it so much. It's too - something-or-other - to stand. I've been sitting here tonight, reading it aloud, with the tears streaming down my face..." --Deems Taylor, Letter to Mary Kennedy, 12 December 1920
December 12 is the 346th day (347th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 19 days remaining. ...
1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ...
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