The Cords of Vanity

The Cords of Vanity (1920) is a comic romance novel by James Branch Cabell. Set in a world where history and fantasy collide, where the laws of chivalry and honor continue to hold sway in postbellum South, The Cords of Vanity is included in a series of novels, essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel. A man of honor and tradition, Robert Townsend comes from a prominent family whose wealth and power once depended on its ownership of slaves. Raised in a fast-changing world, in which the old agrarian way of life is being replaced in response to growing industrialization, Robert spends much of his time weaving tall tales. In dreams only, he lives up to the ideals of his ancestors, for whom honor was the most important thing of all. Set in a fictionalized version of Richmond, The Cords of Vanity is a captivating, hilarious tale of chivalry and romance inspired by the author’s experiences as a young man raised in a family of Southern aristocrats. Originally written in 1909, before Cabell found success and infamy with the publication of Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919), the novel is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a young writer hungry for critical acclaim. 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 Cords of Vanity, 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 Cords of Vanity is a classic of fantasy and romance reimagined for modern readers.

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