I first encountered the work of James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) when I was about twelve or thirteen. The cover of The Silver Stallion attracted my attention while I was browsing through the library. Now that book was an unexpected kidney-punch in the clinch to a good church-going lad like myself. I hadn’t experienced that sort of subversion of my conventional weltanschauung before, except perhaps when reading Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven or The Mysterious Stranger in the massive The Family Mark Twain. That connection to Twain isn’t surprising, looking back at it across the years: Cabell wrote in that distinctively American vein of cynical, wry humor that characterized Ambrose Bierce and much of Mark Twain’s output. In fact, if I recall correctly, Twain was rather an admirer of Cabell.

I next ran across Cabell in a dusty, apparently little-visited section of the library stacks, finding Hamlet Had an Uncle. I don’t recall much of this book except for enjoying it quite a lot. I ought to track down a copy.

It wasn’t until college that I found Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice. Jurgen may not have changed my life, but it expanded it. I’ve read it at least three times over the years, and it continues to hold up as a mature, thoughtful, and yet oddly hopeful masterpiece. Oh, and funny, of course. Cabell, even at his most misanthropic, is always funny. It wasn’t many more years before I began collecting Cabell, rather than merely borrowing him from the library.

But why am I writing about capital L “Literature” for a fantasy blog? Let me get into that. Jurgen may have been banned in Boston (or wherever), but it isn’t smut. Jurgen is one of a corpus of novels Cabell set in Poictesme: a mythic, forgotten-by-history province of France. During one of my many (very many) hours spent wandering through Powell’s Books, I ran across more Cabell, reprinted as part of Lin Carter’s invaluable Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. There was The Silver Stallion again, and many more. Here were knights, damsels, gods, and monsters; magic, curses, and adventures as fantastic as they were picaresque.

No, the Poictesme novels aren’t heroic fantasy. They aren’t heroic at all. More anti-heroic, in fact. But they are fantasy. Cynical, breathtakingly well written, philosophical fantasy. I wouldn’t recommend any of the novels as a substitute for a main course dish of adventure fantasy. However, taken as a palate cleanser, Cabell will leave you refreshed, and your taste for a meat-and-potatoes S&S entrée whetted.

Cabell (make sure you pronounce it properly: “Tell the rabble my name is Cabell”) is one of those American authors, like Abraham Merritt, who was widely famed and read during his life, but is now largely forgotten. There may be authors whose legacy is deservedly flushed down the Lethe. But Cabell -- again, like Merritt -- isn’t one.

This is, apparently, a position I’ve consistently maintained for years, constant as the northern star. Following is a post I wrote back in 2013. Yes, I’m quoting myself. Why not? I stand by every word.

Did America ever produce a more elegant writer than James Branch Cabell? Every phrase, every simile, every line of dialog is smooth, cultured. His work displayed urbane wit on par with Oscar Wilde.

Here is a paragraph from what many consider Cabell’s magnum opus, Jurgen.

“So they fought. Now Jurgen was a very acceptable swordsman, but from the start he found in Heitman Michael his master. Jurgen had never reckoned upon that and he considered it annoying. If Heitman Michael perforated Jurgen the future would be altered, certainly, but not quite as Jurgen had decided it ought to be remodeled. This unlooked for complication seemed preposterous; and Jurgen began to be irritated by the suspicion that he was getting himself killed for nothing.”

I love the droll, tongue-in-cheek understatement. And the man filled volumes with this cultured verve. Fritz Leiber often achieved similar heights, though he did not imbue his work with the same sense of aristocratic archness. Clark Ashton Smith could weave words and worlds with the same facility as Cabell, but while both men wrote from a position of world-weary cynicism, Smith seldom displayed the same degree of sustained humor and when he did it tended toward the grim rather than the philosophical.

And Cabell was doubtless a philosopher. How should a man live in an uncaring universe, and does it matter? Cabell addressed these issues. And few since Shakespeare have delved as insightfully into love, lust, and marriage.

Cabell -- at one point a household name -- has sadly fallen into obscurity. It is a shame that such a master -- once banned in Boston, a sign of quality if there ever was one -- should no longer be widely read.

What say we try to reverse that?

Ken Lizzi is an attorney and the author of an assortment of short stories and novels, including Under Strange Suns and the Falchion's Company series. When not traveling -- and he'd rather be traveling -- he lives in Oregon with his wife and daughter. He enjoys reading, homebrewing, and visiting new places. He loathes writing about himself in the third person. You can keep up with his nonsense at http://www.kenlizzi.net.