The Collected Jorkens


The Collected Jorkens is a three-volume omnibus collection of fantasy short stories by author Lord Dunsany and issued by Night Shade Books, then of Portland, Oregon.

Jorkens

The Jorkens stories are "told" in the setting of a London gentleman's or adventurers' club of which the title character and the narrator are members, and usually open with another member mentioning an interesting experience he has had; this rouses Jorkens, who in return for a whisky-and-soda goes the other member one better with an extraordinary tall tale, supposedly from his own past. His stories often tip well over the boundaries of the plausible, into the realms of fantasy, horror, or even science fiction, and his auditors can never be quite sure what proportion of what he relates was truly experienced and to what degree he might have embellished.

Contents

The first volume comprises The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens, first published in London by G. P. Putnam's Sons in April, 1931, and Jorkens Remembers Africa, first published in New York City by Longmans, Green & Co. in 1934.
The second volume gathers the third and fourth books of Dunsany's Jorkens tales, with two previously uncollected pieces. The books, Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey and The Fourth Book of Jorkens, were originally published in 1940 and 1947 respectively.
The third volume gathers the fifth and sixth books of Dunsany's Jorkens tales, with three previously uncollected pieces, including the last Jorkens story written. The books, Jorkens Borrows Another Whiskey and The Last Book of Jorkens were originally published in 1954 and 2002 respectively. The fifth book brought one key story in which Jorkens is joined by his most frequent adversary, Terbut, while the sixth book contains two stories written as late as 1957 ; the author died in October 1957.
The first volume was issued in a leatherette-bound hardback, with a stamped illustration and no dust jacket, in early 2004. It had originally been scheduled for release in 2003 with a dust jacket illustrated by Charles Vess but the publisher announced initially delays, and then a change to the format, due to the artist's heavy schedule. The second volume was also published in 2004, while the third was published in 2005.

Volume One