Influence
Cabell's work was thought of very highly by a number of his peers, including Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Joseph Hergesheimer, and Jack Woodford. Although now largely forgotten by the general public, his work was remarkably influential on later authors of fantastic fiction. James Blish was a fan of Cabell's works, and for a time edited Kalki, the journal of the Cabell Society. Robert A. Heinlein was greatly inspired by Cabell's boldness, and originally described his famous book Stranger in a Strange Land as "a Cabellesque satire." A later work, Job: A Comedy of Justice (with the title derived from Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice), features Jurgen, an appearance of the Slavic god Koschei.
Fritz Leiber's Swords of Lankhmar was also influenced by Jurgen. Charles G. Finney's famous fantasy The Circus of Dr. Lao was influenced by Cabell's work. The Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith are, in background, close to those of Cabell's Poictesme. Jack Vance's Dying Earth books show considerable stylistic resemblances to Cabell; Cugel the Clever in those books bears a strong resemblance, not least in his opinion of himself, to Jurgen. Cabell was also a major influence on Neil Gaiman, acknowledged as such in the rear of Gaiman's novels Stardust and American Gods. This thematic and stylistic influence is highly evident in the multi-layered pantheons of Gaiman's most famous work, The Sandman, which have many parallels in Cabell's work, particularly Jurgen.
Cabell maintained a close and lifelong friendship with well-known Richmond writer Ellen Glasgow, whose house on West Main St. was only a few blocks from Cabell's family home on East Franklin St. They corresponded extensively between 1923 and Glasgow's death in 1945 and over 200 of their letters survive. Cabell dedicated his 1927 novel Something About Eve to her, and she in turn dedicated her book They Stooped to Folly: A Comedy of Morals (1929) to Cabell. In her autobiography, Glasgow also gave considerable thanks to Cabell for his help in the editing of her Pulitzer Prize-winning book In This Our Life (1941). However, late in their lives, friction developed between the two writers as a result of Cabell's critical 1943 review of Glasgow's novel A Certain Measure.
From 1969 through 1972, the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series returned six of Cabell's novels to print, and elevated his profile in the fantasy genre. Today, many more of his works are available from Wildside Press.
Read more about this topic: James Branch Cabell
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