Lord Dunsany's chess variant is grim and kind of brilliant

I first read about Lord Dunsany – I am happy to report his full name was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett – in a collection of Arthur C. Clarke’s non-fiction. In an early essay, Clarke describes going to see Dunsany, a beloved fantasy and science fiction author, when Clarke was young and Dunsany, who was born in 1878, was already getting on a bit. There is a moment in this essay that has stuck with me.

Clarke is getting one of his books signed. “I took with me a copy of his fantasy The Charwoman’s Shadow…which he duly autographed with a sweeping DUNSANY running right across the page; it was the only time I ever saw anyone use a quill pen and then sprinkle the result with fine sand to dry the ink.” That is wonderful, but re-reading the piece this morning I am delighted to see that Dunsany also corrected a mistake in the text. “‘The Country Towards Moon’s Rising’ was transformed into ‘The Country Beyond Moon’s Rising.'”

I tried to get into Dunsany shortly after reading that. His books were hard to come by at the time and the only printings I could find were cheap and unpleasant – if Dunsany had tried to sign these, his autograph would have bled through from the first page to the last. But also this: Dunsany is a writer of serious whimsy – more on this in a bit – and serious whimsy is something you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy.

So I bounced off Dunsany and went back into orbit, and circled the Country Towards/Beyond Moon’s Rising for the best part of two decades. He became the sort of writer I loved to think about – a mysterious link in the gnarled chain of fantasy. The sort of writer I would ask other writers about when I met them.

Then I encountered Dunsany again in Christopher Fowler’s glorious collection The Book of Forgotten Authors. I urge you to buy this wonderful, generous, endlessly discursive book. If nothing else it’s the perfect present for problem birthdays and Christmases.

Dunsany gets two pages here, which may not sound like much, but with Fowler it’s enough to get a full measure of the man. Dunsany, I read, was 6 foot 4 and a cricketer, chess champion, and he lived in Ireland’s longest-inhabited dwelling, Dunsany Castle. He wrote whimsy, yes, but again: serious whimsy, the detailing was bright and “his wonder-worlds are remarkably well-realised, and populated by elves, fairies, trolls, gods and various immortals who, although clearly supernatural, possess the damaging characteristics of humans.”

Damaging characteristics! I love that, and I love the fact that in the sweep of fantasy, Fowler locates Dunsany with precision, “between Richard Dadd and the Moomins.”

I returned to Dunsany after that and got another cheap paperback – Dunsany’s Wonder Tales. I read “How Nuth Would Have Practiced his Art upon the Gnoles,” which Fowler recommends – a story of professional thieves and unmentionable punishments. But again I bounced off. And I couldn’t say why. Dunsany grabbed me as a character himself, but I couldn’t really bring his work to life.

Maybe this will change. Last week, for whatever reason, I was looking through a list of chess variants and I came across Dunsany’s Chess. Not Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, surely? Then I remembered that bit in Fowler about Dunsany being a chess champion. Then I took a look at the variant, and there was no doubt that this belonged between Richard Dadd and the Moomins. It’s whimsical, but it’s serious. And it’s sinister AF. Was this, finally, a way in?

Dunsany came up with his variant in 1942, and there is something of wartime to it. It’s an asymmetrical spin on chess (yes, I appreciate that with White going first, chess is already asymmetrical) and it’s very striking, even, I imagine, if you don’t play the game.