The Magical Land and Its Surroundings

Nikolai Epple is a philologist and translator, a specialist in the history of English literature, winner of the Enlightenment Prize. The popular science book “The Magic Land and Its Environments” is a collection of essays about English writers of the 19th-21st centuries, whose works are usually classified as such genres as fairy tales, stories for children, and fantasy novels. However, here these authors appear to the reader as inscribed in the tradition of the literature of the Magic Land. Talking about allusions and reminiscences, identifying connections between artistic fiction and historical and linguistic reality, Epple considers English literature of the “fairy land” as a conversation between a small circle of people who know each other well. Macdonald, Carroll, Graham, Milne, Chesterton, Williams, Lewis, Tolkien, Pullman, Pratchett, Rowling, Clark - they all know each other in life or through books, learn from each other, “play” and argue with each other. Thus, MacDonald convinced Carroll to write down the tale of Alice; Chesterton was one of the most insightful commentators on Carroll's absurdity, and Tolkien was a close reader of Macdonald; Milne, Lewis, Pratchett admired Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows; Rowling loved Narnia as a child and considers Tolkien's books one of her most important reading experiences. These authors have truly “elven skill” (as Tolkien calls it) to create a Secondary world, permeated with magic and mysteries, from fragments of Primary reality: historical events, cultural and linguistic phenomena, personal meetings and literary impressions. Their Fantasy is born of reason, and their absurdity is based on logic. Therefore, the so-called “fairy tales” of English masters are by no means an escape from reality and a path to escapism, but, on the contrary, a way to comprehend the true order of things and get closer to Reality. The publication is decorated with photographs of English writers, illustrations for their works, reproductions of graphics and paintings, manuscripts and covers of first editions.