Chivalry

Ten linked tales make up this early entry in Cabell’s long chronicle of Poictesme, each built around a medieval queen or great lady tested by love, duty, and the distance between chivalric ideals and human appetite. Cabell moves through the courts of England and France, following women who must weigh honor against desire while the men around them profess a devotion they rarely live up to. His prose is deliberately ornate and laced with irony, treating the code of chivalry as both beautiful and faintly absurd. The result is romance written by a skeptic, elegant and knowing at once. Offered here as a free PDF and EPUB edition for readers exploring one of American fantasy’s stranger stylists.