The Last Book of Jorkens

The Last Book of Jorkens, the sixth and last collection of Dunsany’s Jorkens tales to be published, is a collection of fantasy short stories around the character Joseph Jorkens. It was left unpublished on Dunsany’s death, and was finally issued in a limited first special edition in 2002. The book collects twenty-two short pieces by Dunsany.



The Jorkens stories are set in the London gentleman’s or adventurer’s club of which the title character is a member. They usually open with another member mentioning an interesting experience he has had; this rouses Jorkens, who in return for a whisky-and-soda (merely to “moisten his throat,” you understand!) goes the other member one better with an extraordinary tall tale, supposedly from his own past. His stories often tip well over the boundaries of the plausible, into the realms of fantasy, horror, or even science fiction, and his auditors can never be quite sure what proportion of what he relates was truly experienced and to what degree he might have embellished.