"E. R. Eddison - Mezentian Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddison E.R)

may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest
respect and can admire it in others: but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full
form, the enchantment of love after my own heart.
Keats




PREFATORY NOTE

My brother Eric died on 18 August 1945. He had written the following note in
November 1944;
"Of this book, THE MEZENTIAN GATE, the opening chapters (including the
Praeludium) and the final hundred pages or so which form the climax are now
completed. Two thirds of it are yet to write. The following Argument with Dates
summarizes in broad outline the subject matter of these unwritten chapters. The
dates are Anno Zayanae Conditae; from the founding of the city of Zayana.
The book at this stage is thus a full-length portrait in oils of which the face
has been painted in but the rest of the picture no more than roughly sketched in
charcoal, As such, it has enough unity and finality to stand as something more
than a fragment. Indeed it seems to me, even in its present state, to contain my
best work.
If through misfortune I were to be prevented from finishing this book, I
should wish it to be published as it stands, together with the Argument to
represent the unwritten parts.
E. R. E.
7th November, 1944."
 Between November 1943 and August 1945 two further chapters, 28 and 29,
were completed in draft and take their place in the text (pages 123-52).
A letter written in January 1945 indicates that in the writing of Books II to V
my brother might perhaps have "unloaded" some of the detail comprised in the
Argument with Dates. In substance, however, there can be no doubt that he would
have followed the argument closely.
My brother had it in mind to use a photograph of the El Greco painting of
which he writes at the end of his letter of introduction. 1 am sure that he would have
preferred and welcomed the drawing by Keith Henderson which appears as a
frontispiece. The photograph has been used, by courtesy of the Hispanic Society of
America, as a basis for the drawing.
We are deeply grateful to my brother's old friend Sir George Rostrevor
Hamilton for his unstinted help and counsel in the preparation of THE
MEZENTIAN GATE for publication. We also warmly appreciate the generous
assistance given by Sir Francis Meynell in designing the form and typographical
layout for the book. The maps were originally prepared by the late Gerald Hayes for
the other volumes of the trilogy of which THE MEZENTIAN GATE is a part.
C. R. E.




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