With an introduction by Peter S. Beagle An old woman who spends her days scrubbing the floors might be an unlikely damsel in distress, but Lord Dunsany proves once again his mastery of the fantastical. The Charwoman's Shadow is a beautiful tale of a sorcerer's apprentice who discovers his master's nefarious usage of stolen shadows, and vows to save the charwoman from her slavery. Praise for The Charwoman's Shadow “Lord Dunsany is the great grandfather of us all.” —Jane Yolen, winner of National Book Award, Nebula Award, and Wolf Fantasy Award “Lord Dunsany is the fountainhead of all twentieth-century fantasy. He was certainly the finest inventor of titles ever to grace English Literature.” —Dave Duncan, author of The Gilded Chain “How wonderful that Del Rey is bringing back The Charwoman's Shadow and The King of Elfland's Daughter  for readers, new and old alike, to discover them anew. It will be a delight to read it for the first time again.” —Dennis L. McKiernan, author of The Hèl's Crucible duology “These two novels have as much of Wonder and Faerie in them as you'll find anywhere in English, and the prose itself is remarkable both for its richness and its simplicity. Dunsany can entertain any reader and teach any writer.” —David Drake, author of Lord of the Isles “Lord Dunsany is the great grandfather of us all.” —Jane Yolen, winner of National Book Award, Nebula Award, and Wolf Fantasy Award “Lord Dunsany is the fountainhead of all twentieth-century fantasy. He was certainly the finest inventor of titles ever to grace English Literature.” —Dave Duncan, author of  The Gilded Chain “How wonderful that Del Ray is bringing back  The Charwoman's Shadow  and  The King of Elfland's Daughter  for readers, new and old alike, to discover them anew. It will be a delight to read it for the first time again.” —Dennis L. McKiernan, author of  The Hèl's Crucible  duology “These two novels hve as much of Wonder and Faerie in them as you'll find anywhere in ENglish, and the prose itself is remarkable both for its richness and its simplicity. Dunsany can entertain any reader and teach any writer.” —David Drake, author of  Lord of the Isles An old woman who spends her days scrubbing the floors might be an unlikely damsel in distress, but Lord Dunsany proves once again his mastery of the fantastical. The Charwoman's Shadow is a beautiful tale of a sorcerer's apprentice who discovers his master's nefarious usage of stolen shadows, and vows to save the charwoman from her slavery. An old woman who spends her days scrubbing the floors might be an unlikely damsel in distress, but Lord Dunsany proves once again his mastery of the fantastical. The Charwoman's Shadow is a beautiful tale of a sorcerer's apprentice who discovers his master's nefarious usage of stolen shadows, and vows to save the charwoman from her slavery. Lord Dunsany was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, the eighteenth baron of an ancient line. He hunted lions in Africa, taught English in Athens, fought in the Boer and Kaiserian wars, and was wounded in the service of his country. As senior peer of Ireland, he saw three sovereigns crowned at Westminster; part of the renaissance of Irish drama, he hobnobbed with Yeats and Synge and Lady Gregory during the great days of Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He was peer, sportsman, soldier, playwright, globe-trotter, and once chess champion of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He wrote more than sixty books before his death in 1957 and influenced some of the greatest writers of our time. The Lord of the Tower Finds a Career for His Son Picture a summer evening sombre and sweet over Spain, the glittering sheen of leaves fading to soberer colours, the sky in the west all soft, and mysterious as low music, and in the east like a frown. Picture the Golden Age past its wonderful zenith, and westering now towards its setting. In such a time of day and time of year, and in such a time of history, a young man was travelling on foot on a Spanish road, from a village wellnigh unknown, towards the gloom and grandeur of mountains. And as he travelled a wind rising up with the fall of day flapped his cloak hugely about him. The strength of the wind grew, until little strange cries were in it; the slope steepened, the daylight waned; and the man and his cloak and the evening so merged into one darkness that even in imagination I can but dimly see him now. Let us therefore turn to such questions as who he was, and how he came to be faring at such an hour towards a region so rocky and lonely as that which loomed before him, while the latest stragglers amongst other men were nearing their houses amongst the sheltered fields. His name was Ramon Alonzo Matthew-Mark-Luke-John of the Tower and Rocky Forest. And his father had lately called to him as he played at ball with his sister, beating it back and forth to each other over a deep yew hedge; and the ball had a row of feathers fixed all round it to make it fly gently