The Shaving of Shagpat (1909). By

The Shaving of Shagpat: An Arabian Entertainment is a fantasy novel by George Meredith. It was first published in hardcover by Chapman and Hall in 1856, and there have been numerous editions since. Its importance in the history of fantasy literature was recognized by its reissuing by Ballantine Books as the seventeenth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in July 1970. The Ballantine edition includes an introduction by Lin Carter. The novel is a humorous oriental romance and allegory written in the style of the Arabian Nights. Like its model, it includes a number of stories within the story, along with poetic asides. Plot summary: Shibli Bagarag, a Persian barber, and Noorna, an enchantress, are given the quest of shaving the tyrant Shagpat, who by the power of his magical hair holds his city in thrall. Along the way Shibli acquires a magic sword and meets a series of exotic creatures, including a talking hawk and several genies. The second paragraph of the book provides a capsule summary of the story: "Now the story of Shibli Bagarag, and of the ball he followed, and of the subterranean kingdom he came to, and of the enchanted palace he entered, and of the sleeping king he shaved, and of the two princesses he released, and of the Afrite held in subjection by the arts of one and bottled by her, is it not known as 'twere written on the finger-nails of men and traced in their corner robes?"............... George Meredith, OM (12 February 1828 - 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. Life: Meredith was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two years. He read law and was articled as a solicitor, but abandoned that profession for journalism and poetry. He collaborated with Edward Gryffydh Peacock, son of Thomas Love Peacock, in publishing a privately circulated literary magazine, the Monthly Observer. He married Edward Peacock's widowed sister Mary Ellen Nicolls in 1849 when he was twenty-one years old and she was twenty-eight. Meredith collected his early writings, first published in periodicals, in an 1851 volume, Poems. In 1856 he posed as the model for The Death of Chatterton, a notable painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis (1830-1916). His wife ran off with Wallis in 1858; she died three years later. The collection of "sonnets" entitled Modern Love (1862) emerged from this experience as did The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, his first "major novel". Meredith married Marie Vulliamy in 1864 and settled in Surrey. He continued writing novels and poetry, often inspired by nature. He had a keen understanding of comedy and his Essay on Comedy (1877) remains a reference work in the history of comic theory. In The Egoist, published in 1879, he applies some of his theories of comedy in one of his most enduring novels. Some of his writings, including The Egoist, also highlight the subjugation of women during the Victorian period.... Patten Wilson (1869 - 1934) was a British magazine and book illustrator. Patten Wilson, the son of a clergyman, was born on March 23, 1869, in Shropshire. His brother was the architect and designer Henry Wilson (1864-1934), who ran an extensive business as a sculptor and metalworker, as well as taught metalwork at the Royal College of Art and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. At age 19, Wilson dropped out of Kidderminster School of Art, and returned home to pursue a course of self-education, studying the work of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). In addition, he made studies of animals and plants. His early designs were "spirited and full of invention"....