Richard Garnett

The Twilight of the Gods

[Typed and scanned, edited and posted by Otto Steinmayer.  Go to Otto Steinmayer's Home Page.  E-mail Otto Steinmayer . I would be greatly obliged if you would bring any typos or other errors you may find to my attention.]

Note, 24 October 2004: I am very greatly indebted to Mr. Bernardus Johannes den Hartog.  He so appreciated the posting of Garnett's stories that he took the trouble to proof-read them all and point out my typing and other errors in detail.  Reading proof is the greatest kindness that a person can do an author or editor, as it is most tedious and unsure part of the process of publishing. 

CONTENTS

1. The Twilight of the Gods

2. The Potion of Lao-Tsze

3. Abdallah the Adite

4. Ananda the Miracle Worker

5. The City of Philosophers

6. The Demon Pope

7. The Cupbearer

8. The Wisdom of the Indians 

9. The Dumb Oracle

10. Duke Virgil

11. The Claw

12. Alexander the Ratcatcher

13. The Rewards of Industry

14. Madam Lucifer

15. The Talismans

16. The Elixir of Life

17. The Poet of Panopolis

18. The Purple Head

19. The Firefly

20. Pan's Wand

21. A Page from the Book of Folly

22. The Bell of St. Euschemon

23. Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo

24. The Philosopher & the Butterfly

25. Truth and Her Companions

26. The Three Palaces

27. New Readings in Biography

28. The Poison Maid



Richard Garnett (1835—1906) worked all his life as Curator of Printed Books at the British Museum.  He was, you may imagine, an astonishingly learned man.  These stories were first recommended to me by John Herington, then Professor of Greek at Yale University.

A number of these stories contain quotations in ancient Greek.  Unfortunately, Unicode standards for displaying ancient Greek have not yet been established, and so I have been forced to make shift in whatever way I can to include the Greek.  If you do not have a Greek font on your computer, you may acquire one (GreekKeys "Athenian") from the Philological Museum site, where I have posted a number of texts. [See http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/speude/ or http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/herc/  or http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/bentley/ ].

Garnett published two editions of The Twilight of the Gods in his lifetime.  The first, in 1888, contained sixteen stories; to  the second, in 1903, he added an additional twelve.  As copy-text I have used a 1948 Penguin reprint of the 1888 collection, and also a posthumous edition of the expanded collection published in 1926 by Knopf, New York.   Footnotes marked by numbers are mine; all others are Garnett's.

Please enjoy!