Lud-in-the-Mist

Hope Mirrlees

1926

The town of Lud was the capital of Dolimare and ruled by its Merchant Princes who believed in nothing but the power of the Law. But when their daughters are stolen from their academy, the stolid burghers are forced to remember that another land lies beyond the mountains.

For centuries, the respectable citizens of Dolimare had hidden the fact that there were two rivers flowing to the sea at Lud the Dawl was wide and as respectable as the citizens themselves, bearing the produce of Dolimare to the four corners of the world. But the Dapple had it's source in the land of Faerie, beyond the debatable lands of the Elfin marches, a land that had been rejected by the citizens of Lud when they had thrown out the tyrannical dukes of old.

But now, the streets are flooded with fairy fruit and there are those who began to openly speak of the Duke with longing and saying that the Merchant Princes who had taken his place were the true tyrants.

Devastated by the disappearance of his daughter and the loss of his son from what was supposed to be a secure location away from the risks of the city, Nathaniel Chanticleer, mayor of the city, finds himself the target of the mob's jokes and the Council's sanction when a supply of the forbidden fairy fruit is found on his premises.

What can he do? Is he to just sit around and watch as his beloved city is torn down around his ears? And what part does the strange doctor Endymion Leer have in all these strange goings on?

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This is part of the Fantasy Masterworks series

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