SOURCE: "A Maker of Mythologies," in The Living Age, Vol. 329, No. 4273, May 29, 1926, pp. 464-66.

Through his work and his charismatic personality, AE was highly influential among the writers of the Irish Renaissance, a generation which sought to reduce the influence of English culture and create a national literature in Ireland. He was central to the rise of the Irish National Theater, and, with W B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, and Lady Gregory, was one of the founders of the Abbey Theater. In the following essay, which originally appeared in Irish Statesman, AE praises Dunsany's imagination and prose style in A Dreamer's Tales, The King of Elfland's Daughter, and The Charwoman's Shadow.

When I try to make an image to symbolize to myself life in the wonderlands of Lord Dunsany's imagination, a fancy comes that over all those wonderlands a monstrous and fantastic cat is brooding and purring. It...