DUNSANY, EDWARD JOHN MORETON DRAX PLUNKETT, 18TH BARON OF

born July 24, 1878, London died Oct. 25, 1957, Dublin Irish dramatist and storyteller, whose many popular works combined imaginative power with intellectual ingenuity to create a credible world of fantasy. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, Dunsany served in the South African War and World War I. His first book of short stories was The Gods of Pegana (1905); his first play, The Glittering Gate, was produced by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1909; and his first London production, The Gods of the Mountain, at the Haymarket Theatre in 1911. As in his more than 50 subsequent verse plays, novels, short stories and memoirs, in these works Dunsany explored in a richly coloured prose mysterious kingdoms of fairies and gods; he also introduced a characteristic element of the macabre.