Kingdoms of Elfin

This is Sylvia Townsend Warner at her best - a lean, spare, evocative collection of fairy tales, but for adults, not children. These fairies are tough, cold, selfish beings, yet all the more glamorous and fascinating for that. Seeing them struggle with everyday problems, made all the more difficult sometimes for being fairies, dealing with age, death, birth, and all-too human conditions makes for an involving narrative. The Kingdom of Broceliande that Warner creates is an enduring creation - this book has been a font of inspiration for many authors, and you can trace the development of Warner's style throughout the stories. Never condescending, always brilliant, this collection is a taut narrative of different characters living in the same world as we do, but with a twist. Sometimes dispassionate, sometimes all too human in their reactions to disaster, stress, love, death, anger, Warner's fairies are not for the faint at heart, or those imagining pink and gold gossamer beings to be found at the bottom of the garden. They pack a punch - worth reading at any age. I discovered these in grade school, and am still reading them in my forties. A must-read for any fan of speculative literature, or for any Warner devotee. They translate the human experience in quite a unique way, and I cannot recommend them enough.