The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment (1923) is a novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly swineherd can rise to be Count of Poictesme, The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment is one work in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. Descended from a line of such legendary heroes as Jurgen and Dom Manuel, Florian, Duke of Puysange, is a relative disgrace to his family name. Known as a dishonorable man, disloyal husband, and destructive ruler, Florian harbors a secret desire. Since boyhood, when he first laid eyes on the daughter of King Helmas, Florian has known that the only way he could ever be happy would be through marriage to Melior. Unable to access the mystical Forest of Acaire, however, he takes out his frustration on friends and foes alike. When Janicot, a shadowy figure, offers Florian his blessing, the Duke sets out for the castle of King Helmas without regard to the details of their pact. Set in a fictionalized France of the 13th century, The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment is a captivating story of fantasy and adventure featuring a flawed hero whose mythical world is not entirely different from our own. Cabell’s work has long been described as escapist, his novels and stories derided as fantastic and obsessive recreations of a world lost long ago. To read The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment, however, is to understand that the issues therein—the struggle for power, the unspoken distance between men and women—were vastly important not only at the time of its publication, but in our own, divisive world. This edition of James Branch Cabell’s The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment is a classic of fantasy and romance reimagined for modern readers.
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