What do you think?
Rate this book
The Biography of Manuel #8
Line of Love: Dizain Des Mariages
James Branch Cabell (April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."
- GenresFantasy
261 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1905
About the author
James Branch Cabell
281 books126 followersJames Branch Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 12, 2025
Reread:
Continuing my reread of the Biography of Manuel, now in hardcopy. Physical object, a leatherbound print-on-demand with the text being the 1926 McBride edition. Still grading on a curve against other Cabell.
Did this one always cut so deep? Maybe i still have residual poison in my veins from Figures of Earth.
First Read:
...and he made her a fair husband, as husbands go.
Another collection of little historical romance sketches from the worlds most cynical romantic or romantic cynic.
For Cabell enthusiasts perhaps a bit overly familiar in places but still pretty enjoyable. For non-Cabell converts you really need to be in the right frame of mind for these kinds of florid, whimsical, laconic pieces. But the cynical edge keeps them from being twee.
The first and last entries are about some of Cabells own creations but three of the other items might be of broader interest. One with an appearance by Philip Marlowe, another about shakespeares Falstaff and a third involving a Fool, a Witch and a Kingship (technically a Marquis-ship) which clearly had a influence on Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.
Overall perfectly enjoyable but it doesn't have the pop of some of Cabells other books.. or i might just not have been in the right mood for it to really hit the spot. Cabells works always require a bit of a collaboration on the readers part.
Edit: I herded some translations available here https://www.librarything.com/topic/37...
Continuing my reread of the Biography of Manuel, now in hardcopy. Physical object, a leatherbound print-on-demand with the text being the 1926 McBride edition. Still grading on a curve against other Cabell.
Did this one always cut so deep? Maybe i still have residual poison in my veins from Figures of Earth.
First Read:
...and he made her a fair husband, as husbands go.
Another collection of little historical romance sketches from the worlds most cynical romantic or romantic cynic.
For Cabell enthusiasts perhaps a bit overly familiar in places but still pretty enjoyable. For non-Cabell converts you really need to be in the right frame of mind for these kinds of florid, whimsical, laconic pieces. But the cynical edge keeps them from being twee.
The first and last entries are about some of Cabells own creations but three of the other items might be of broader interest. One with an appearance by Philip Marlowe, another about shakespeares Falstaff and a third involving a Fool, a Witch and a Kingship (technically a Marquis-ship) which clearly had a influence on Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.
Overall perfectly enjoyable but it doesn't have the pop of some of Cabells other books.. or i might just not have been in the right mood for it to really hit the spot. Cabells works always require a bit of a collaboration on the readers part.
Edit: I herded some translations available here https://www.librarything.com/topic/37...
Read
May 29, 2014In so far as James Branch Cabell is considered nowadays, there's a school of thought that his obscurity is down to his own incorporation of a few masterpieces into an unwieldy and inconsistent sequence. To which I can only reply, in language unworthy of Cabell: fuck y'all victim-blaming lightweights. For one thing, the Biography of Manuel is less than half the size of its distant descendant, the Discworld sequence, and it's even less necessary to read them all, or in order. For another, so far I've not read a component that wasn't wonderful. OK, of the stories here, 'Sweet Adelais' hews too closely to its models and the allegory in the closing 'Porcelain Cups' is at once too blatant and too sour. But elsewhere! Falstaff and Francois Villon are both incorporated as lead characters, and how many authors could carry that off*? The agenda is made clear in the Epistle Dedicatory: "Love is an illusion, if you will; but always through this illusion, alone, has the next generation been rendered possible, and all endearing human idiocies, including "questions of the day," have been maintained." So as we follow one line of descent through the centuries, each tale details some brief, glorious moment of romance. The tone varies - heartfelt, wry, adventurous; there's even one whose structure almost recalls Wodehouse, except with swords and more understanding of sex. Most brought a tear to my eye, or loud laughter, and some managed both. And then the linking passage, with the refrain that 'he made her a fair husband, as husbands go', nodding to the realities of everyday life, before the child or grandchild, convinced that nobody has ever loved like them before, embarks on their own brief moment of magnificence.
*Marlowe's appearance is less successful, granted, in large part because of the heterosexuality.
*Marlowe's appearance is less successful, granted, in large part because of the heterosexuality.
Read
November 14, 2022good to read it
February 26, 2025
Originally published in 1905 by Harper & Brothers of New York, James Branch Cabell's The Line of Love is a collection of short stories first presented in Harper's Monthly Magazine between 1903 and 1904. Some of the illustrations by Howard Pyle from the original magazine articles are included in this volume—though not all, as I have the magazine version of the chapter "The Episode Called In Ursula's Garden," which includes some illustrations not in the book. The Line of Love was republished in 1928 as the seventh volume of the Storisende Edition of The Biography of the Life of Manuel, between Jurgen and The High Place.
The Line of Love is definitely in the third tier of Cabell's work, at least from the perspective of one who comes to Cabell because of his glorious fantasies of the first tier, which include Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion, and Jurgen. For such a reader, the second tier includes the likes of The High Place, The Cream of the Jest, Something About Eve, and perhaps Domnei—all of which are fantasies, more or less, and all of which display Cabell's urbanity and sardonic humour. Others books in the third tier include Chivalry and Gallantry.
The Line of Love consists of seven connected love stories, set between 1355 and 1559. The offspring of the protagonists in one story play a leading role in the next story. Structured in this way, The Line of Love is more coherent than the somewhat similar but disconnected collection of stories in Chivalry. On the other hand, The Line of Love is lighter than Chivalry and contains none of the musings in the latter that would later contribute to Cabell’s philosophy of life and literature expounded in Beyond Life. Overall, I would rank the two books very similarly.
Cabell’s writing in The Line of Love is sophisticated and hard-going at times. Naturally, these are all love stories, though somewhat light. The protagonists go through the motions of love and loss, but I hardly got the impression of genuine rapture or genuine anguish. The characters engage in the mannered conversation or quick repartee typical of Cabell; and even when fighting breaks out, it has the sense of pretend-fighting, as if on stage.
On the plus side, "The Episode Called Love-Letters of Falstaff" is a story about an old love of Shakespeare’s Falstaff, giving us a different perspective on this old roisterer. Then, "The Episode Called In Necessity's Mortar" is set in the early life of medieval French poet François Villon, whose poetic career began with and was inspired by a lost love. I don’t know whether Cabell is historically accurate about Villon, or whether the story is pure invention.
The Line of Love is good enough, if you like light, historical love stories, but don’t come to it expecting any fantasy. As I mentioned, it's far from the top tier of Cabell's work, and would probably be lost entirely were it not set beside the author's great fantasies in The Biography of the Life of Manuel.
The Line of Love is definitely in the third tier of Cabell's work, at least from the perspective of one who comes to Cabell because of his glorious fantasies of the first tier, which include Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion, and Jurgen. For such a reader, the second tier includes the likes of The High Place, The Cream of the Jest, Something About Eve, and perhaps Domnei—all of which are fantasies, more or less, and all of which display Cabell's urbanity and sardonic humour. Others books in the third tier include Chivalry and Gallantry.
The Line of Love consists of seven connected love stories, set between 1355 and 1559. The offspring of the protagonists in one story play a leading role in the next story. Structured in this way, The Line of Love is more coherent than the somewhat similar but disconnected collection of stories in Chivalry. On the other hand, The Line of Love is lighter than Chivalry and contains none of the musings in the latter that would later contribute to Cabell’s philosophy of life and literature expounded in Beyond Life. Overall, I would rank the two books very similarly.
Cabell’s writing in The Line of Love is sophisticated and hard-going at times. Naturally, these are all love stories, though somewhat light. The protagonists go through the motions of love and loss, but I hardly got the impression of genuine rapture or genuine anguish. The characters engage in the mannered conversation or quick repartee typical of Cabell; and even when fighting breaks out, it has the sense of pretend-fighting, as if on stage.
On the plus side, "The Episode Called Love-Letters of Falstaff" is a story about an old love of Shakespeare’s Falstaff, giving us a different perspective on this old roisterer. Then, "The Episode Called In Necessity's Mortar" is set in the early life of medieval French poet François Villon, whose poetic career began with and was inspired by a lost love. I don’t know whether Cabell is historically accurate about Villon, or whether the story is pure invention.
The Line of Love is good enough, if you like light, historical love stories, but don’t come to it expecting any fantasy. As I mentioned, it's far from the top tier of Cabell's work, and would probably be lost entirely were it not set beside the author's great fantasies in The Biography of the Life of Manuel.
March 12, 2022
This review will incorporate two versions of "The Line of Love," which has become one of my favorites of James Cabell's enigmatic Biography of Dom Manuel. Now those of you interested in this landmark fantasy series may be saying to yourself, "I always thought this was one of the books that really had nothing to do with the series. So how did Cabell end up bringing this book into the Dom Manuel universe? And why should we care?" Well, buckle up my Silver Stallions, because I am here to answer all of your burning questions!
"The Line of Love" is the eighth "book" in the seventh volume of the definitive Storisende edition of the Biography of Dom Manuel. It is also the third in the series to not have been originally intended as a Dom Manuel fantasy. Instead, it was simply supposed to be a series of pretty love stories. The original edition is an absolutely gorgeous volume printed in 1905 by Harper Brothers and richly illustrated in color by the famous Howard Pyle. It is an absolute joy to hold in your hand, and highlights that special experience of reading a physical book that we miss in our modern life of e-books and cheap paperbacks.
But how did this dainty little thing that was meant to be read by courting debutantes, lonely widows, and intellectual aristocrats on their spring picnics or with their afternoon tea come to play a role in the the legends of modern nerd culture? How did a book like this shape the careers of people from Tolkien to Gaiman?
In order to answer that question, we must look at how "The Line of Love" contributed to Cabell's world-building. It provides the genetic connection between the two most famous books of the series, "Jurgen" and "Figures of Earth." In so doing, the quest for creative order of Manuel merges with Jurgen's chaos, impacting the fates of generations. As you may know, despite this series being known as the Biography of Dom Manuel, the main book where he features as a living character is "Figures of Earth." In that book, Manuel has a daughter, Melicent. Though fans of this sprawling series are likely to remember the names and mythology associated with Manuel's two daughters Dorothy and (especially) Ettare, it was Melicent and her descendants that first captured my imagination and inspired me to study the Manuel lineage. "Figures of Earth" also features one of my favorite couples in all of literature--the henpecked but powerful wizard Miramon Lluagor and his tough but big-hearted wife Gisele. In the subsequent novel, "Domnei," the son of Miramon (Demetrios) battles with Perion of the Forest over the hand of Melicent. To make a long story short, Perion is victorious and he does eventually wed the fair Melicent. Their first child is Adelaide, who is now the granddaughter of Manuel, and it is she and her progeny who we follow in "The Line." Adelaide marries the Comte de Nointel and has three children. One of these children is Sylvie. Along comes Florian, the "son" of the Vicomte de Puysange. It turns out that Florian is actually the son of the infamous Jurgen, who had a bit of an affair with the Vicomte's wife. It is of Florian's courtship and marriage to Sylvie that concerns the first story of "The Line." From here, the links between the multitude of characters and events spanning the entirety of Cabell's literary career start to branch and grow, weaving a complex tapestry linking both fantasy and real European and American history into a mythology for the West. Cabell ended up dedicating the rest of his life to building this world full of very realistic relationships to the point where he was probably the first to have to write a compendium which outlined this very detailed history. For you Tolkien fans, is this starting to sound familiar?
Both versions of the book open with a dedication to a Mrs. Grundy. This is the figurative name that Cabell liked to use to represent tyrannical propriety--the conventional mores of "good and decent society." You know--the kind of people that have conniptions over your Tweet or that picture you posted on Facebook of last year's Halloween costume. Here, he is defending in advance his choice to publish a racy romance, saying that love and sex are the most important topics for literature. "Who are we to question this, when nine-tenths of us owe our existence to a Summer flirtation?" He rightfully concludes "that love-affairs, little and big" have and always will be "shaping history," thus opening the door to these fictional romances that shaped his history as a writer.
If one follows the lineages that began with these love stories through the centuries, one will come across other familiar names to Cabell fans: the Allonsbys, the Bulmers, the Kennistons, the Musgraves, and the Townsends. In fact, it is through the character of Robert Etheridge Townsend that we see the conclusion to the entire Biography series, and it is also he who (fictionally) wrote much of the Biography in the first place, including "The Cords of Vanity," "From the Hidden Way," and "The Line of Love." Here we see our first major difference between the original "Line of Love" and the Storisende edition. In the original introduction to "The Line," Cabell writes: "Here for little I have followed her, the arch-trickster." By 1921, the Storisende edition added to that sentence "...with a little gracious connivance of Mr. R.E. Townsend, to whom all lyrics hereinafter should be accredited..." It was an interesting choice to later change the "authorship" of "The Line" to be that of Townsend, since in the original version, Cabell also pretended to have not been the author either, making elaborate claims that he found these stories in old manuscripts taken from the extensive libraries of a family chateau. He cites such sources as Nicholas de Caen, Will Sommers, and perhaps even Shakespeare himself. Being a Francophile scholar, Cabell even inserted poems and sayings in Middle French and Latin, which were battling for supremacy during the times this book was set, with Latin being the ultimate loser. Cabell did such a great job playing up faking his "sources" that reviews of his books took for granted that he was merely the editor or translator of older works.
The second major difference we encounter between the two texts is the aforementioned discussion of Florian being the bastard son of Jurgen. This was not part of the original book. Cabell's 1921 changes to "The Line of Love" transformed his little book of romances into a sort of sequel to his infamous "Jurgen." Florian, Jurgen's son, is bewitched on the day of his wedding to Adelaide, causing him to travel thirty years forward in time. He meets three ladies upon recovering consciousness, one of whom is his young bride, now a hefty window in middle-age. He discovers that he disappeared on his wedding day, so she moved on with her life, married another man, and had children, which injures his pride. Aren't marriage vows forever? Isn't love immortal? She takes the whole thing in stride, even teasing him by saying that she is available if he still wants to marry her. And of course he doesn't, citing that she is not the same person. She responds, "So do you quit talking nonsense about immortality and sacraments." Fortunately for Florian, one of the other ladies present is Adelaide's daughter, Sylvie, who is perfectly willing to get it on with Mom's former lover!
This is an awesome and hilarious opening, perfectly combining eerie fantasy reminiscent of something out of the Twilight Zone with a comic deconstruction of marriage and true love. Here you can see Cabell's influence on later writers like Neil Gaiman, Robert Heinlein, and Terry Pratchett. It also expounds on the legend of Melicent, Adelaide's mother from the earlier Manuelian novel "Domnei," who was held captive from her hero by the aforementioned Demetrios until she was no longer young. And it sets the stage for the rest of the bizarre yet profoundly touching stories to follow. From here, the stories largely remain the same from the original version.
Though the book focuses on intimate subjects, it remains epic in scope, consisting of ten (Cabell loved groups of ten, or "dizaines") courtships of minor historical personalities mixed with established fictional ones (like Falstaff and Mistress Quickly). They take place between April 14, 1355 and May 27, 1559, ranging from the fairy-tale land of Poictesme to southern England during the Hundred Years War, which led to the strengthening of the French monarchy under the victorious House of Valois while the Tudors ascended to the English throne. This was a crucial historical setting for the development of Cabell's Manuelian saga. Chivalry is an important theme in the Biography, and Cabell considered the end of the Hundred Years War to begin the decline of chivalry. Also, by incorporating real history into Dom Manuel's lineage, Cabell further blurred another "line," that of reality and fiction. This is how legends are birthed. After all, when do the fables of one's ancestors become historical fact? We are the stories we tell ourselves.
Each episode pays homage to classic romances. Expect beautiful and familiar images of men staring up at a balcony high on a castle tower, serenading the love of their life with lute and voice. Expect sword-fights and knightly chivalry and courtly intrigue and dastardly mustachioed villains. But this is a Cabell book after all, so expect him to turn these classic archetypes on their head--there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns!
"But Warren, you Cabellian caballero," I hear you protest, "this is all very well and good, but why do you find this particular book so fascinating?" Well, there are multiple reasons. The first concerns how it fits in to Cabell's larger Manuel universe and what it says about Cabell as a visionary. "The Line of Love" serves as a bridge between the more traditional fantasy (based in the fictional land of Poictesme) and how it bleeds into the tales of 20th Century Virginia in the latter half of the series. Secondly, a study of the evolution of this book says a lot about the process and magic of creative writing. Here we have a beautiful set of romance stories written by a young man early in his career for a specific purpose, but later in life, as he has gained more wisdom and has reevaluated what he has done with this life and what life means for him, the characters that he created in his youth start calling him again. They take on a life of their own. I don't know if Cabell ever studied Jung, but it is clear that he recognized the archetypes of his creations, and he felt they had a life separate from the books in which they appeared. He had opened a window into their world in 1905, but he knew they had more to say. So he revisits "The Line of Love," and in collaboration with his characters, starts seeing the colors more vividly, the tapestry of life and consciousness more fully. He sees the quest of Dom Manuel being played out in these stories, and he wonders why he never saw it before. These characters carry the "geas" imposed on Dom Manuel by his mother. In Irish folklore, the geas (pronounced "gesh") is a magical obligation. This obligation has been transferred to his progeny, like one's genetics, and no matter how dilute, there are those where the geas manifests as inescapable as one's eye color or receding hair line inherited from ancestors long ago.
I believe it is in "The Line of Love" that Cabell first really started to develop the direction of his final Storisende epic, when he realized that his career had been not about individual stories and characters, but about the ongoing quest of our ancestors as played out in our lives. When he decided to refer to his books as part of the "Biography of Manuel," he was not referring to the adventures of this one Count of Poictesme, but the life of this "geas" throughout the centuries. It is a twist on the reincarnation story. H.L. Mencken writes of Cabell in his foreword to the 1921 edition, "the beautiful, to him, is not a state of being, but an eternal becoming."
Finally, I guess I have some personal reasons for being so endeared to this one. I first read "The Line of Love" while my father was on his last few days on this earth. He was on hospice and I was sitting at his bedside kind of just waiting for the end, and I just so happened to have this book with me for company during this rather depressing vigil. Now back then, I was certainly your typical angry young man. It was easier for me to feel rage than to feel sadness or grief. Or more often, I would shut down and feel nothing at all. You know--tough guy. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of stuff. And that's probably what I was doing with this book. I was reading some pretty romances instead of allowing myself to work through the grief. When my dad eventually passed, I was charged with writing an obituary to print in the paper and to read at his graveside service. And while I was writing my little speech, looking through old photographs and recalling memories of what my dad meant to me and my family, I found I was incorporating the book I was reading into my thoughts. I realized there was a lot of Dom Manuel in my dad, and as such, there was a little of Dom Manuel in me. I started to realize just how much I was like my dad, in all the "good" ways and the "bad." My sister and I started going through his personal affects, and we uncovered some ancient pictures of women he used to date--people that he knew and loved long before he met my mother, but people I guess that he felt a special ongoing attachment to that he couldn't bare to throw their pictures in the garbage. I know this sounds weird, but I found them all rather attractive. Not just attractive--it was like I had known them and loved them before. In fact, one of them looked a lot like my wife. For some reason, it hit me. He wasn't gone after all. His biography continued on in me and my sister, and in our children. In all of us, there is a "line of love" that never ends and never dies.
From then on, I developed an acceptance of who I was, and a different relationship with loss. I became much more mindful of my geas. I am a very different person now than I was before my dad died, but I am also still me--just older and more sane (or more insane, depending on how you look at it). As a kid, I vowed to never be like my dad, but then I developed a new understanding of him and a kinship to him when I realized I was doing all the same stupid shit he did. Only it wasn't stupid. There was and is a meaning and purpose behind it all. And it made me think of the legacy that I want to leave for my kids. Where do I want them to start off their Quest? And with what tools? You know there is always a bit of music or a movie or a book that you will always remember for the role it played in certain parts of your life. Well, "The Line of Love" is one of those for me.
Maybe it will touch you in a similar way. Maybe not. At least I hope I was able to bring some important perspective to this almost forgotten work of art and encourage some of you to give it a try or a second look. I don't think it particularly matters which version you read as they are not so completely different. I would say that this book started life in 1905 as a handsome book, a favorite of people like Teddy Roosevelt, that was written by a master of the English language. But 16 years later, Cabell made it a masterpiece. This is one of the few times I will concede that shoehorning a previously unrelated property into a fantasy series actually worked. The "Line" picks up again in the 9th book of the series, "The High Place," in 1698 with yet another Florian, a descendent of Jurgen, who is very much like his ancestor...
Neil Gaiman once said that Cabell's work can infect you. Well, I'm among the infected, and this is one of the books responsible. If you are studying modern fantasy, or are curious about Cabell's Dom Manuel series, or just love good literature, don't pass this one by.
Merged review:
This review will incorporate two versions of "The Line of Love," which has become one of my favorites of James Cabell's enigmatic Biography of Dom Manuel. Now those of you interested in this landmark fantasy series may be saying to yourself, "I always thought this was one of the books that really had nothing to do with the series. So how did Cabell end up bringing this book into the Dom Manuel universe? And why should we care?" Well, buckle up my Silver Stallions, because I am here to answer all of your burning questions!
"The Line of Love" is the eighth "book" in the seventh volume of the definitive Storisende edition of the Biography of Dom Manuel. It is also the third in the series to not have been originally intended as a Dom Manuel fantasy. Instead, it was simply supposed to be a series of pretty love stories. The original edition is an absolutely gorgeous volume printed in 1905 by Harper Brothers and richly illustrated in color by the famous Howard Pyle. It is an absolute joy to hold in your hand, and highlights that special experience of reading a physical book that we miss in our modern life of e-books and cheap paperbacks.
But how did this dainty little thing that was meant to be read by courting debutantes, lonely widows, and intellectual aristocrats on their spring picnics or with their afternoon tea come to play a role in the the legends of modern nerd culture? How did a book like this shape the careers of people from Tolkien to Gaiman?
In order to answer that question, we must look at how "The Line of Love" contributed to Cabell's world-building. It provides the genetic connection between the two most famous books of the series, "Jurgen" and "Figures of Earth." In so doing, the quest for creative order of Manuel merges with Jurgen's chaos, impacting the fates of generations. As you may know, despite this series being known as the Biography of Dom Manuel, the main book where he features as a living character is "Figures of Earth." In that book, Manuel has a daughter, Melicent. Though fans of this sprawling series are likely to remember the names and mythology associated with Manuel's two daughters Dorothy and (especially) Ettare, it was Melicent and her descendants that first captured my imagination and inspired me to study the Manuel lineage. "Figures of Earth" also features one of my favorite couples in all of literature--the henpecked but powerful wizard Miramon Lluagor and his tough but big-hearted wife Gisele. In the subsequent novel, "Domnei," the son of Miramon (Demetrios) battles with Perion of the Forest over the hand of Melicent. To make a long story short, Perion is victorious and he does eventually wed the fair Melicent. Their first child is Adelaide, who is now the granddaughter of Manuel, and it is she and her progeny who we follow in "The Line." Adelaide marries the Comte de Nointel and has three children. One of these children is Sylvie. Along comes Florian, the "son" of the Vicomte de Puysange. It turns out that Florian is actually the son of the infamous Jurgen, who had a bit of an affair with the Vicomte's wife. It is of Florian's courtship and marriage to Sylvie that concerns the first story of "The Line." From here, the links between the multitude of characters and events spanning the entirety of Cabell's literary career start to branch and grow, weaving a complex tapestry linking both fantasy and real European and American history into a mythology for the West. Cabell ended up dedicating the rest of his life to building this world full of very realistic relationships to the point where he was probably the first to have to write a compendium which outlined this very detailed history. For you Tolkien fans, is this starting
"The Line of Love" is the eighth "book" in the seventh volume of the definitive Storisende edition of the Biography of Dom Manuel. It is also the third in the series to not have been originally intended as a Dom Manuel fantasy. Instead, it was simply supposed to be a series of pretty love stories. The original edition is an absolutely gorgeous volume printed in 1905 by Harper Brothers and richly illustrated in color by the famous Howard Pyle. It is an absolute joy to hold in your hand, and highlights that special experience of reading a physical book that we miss in our modern life of e-books and cheap paperbacks.
But how did this dainty little thing that was meant to be read by courting debutantes, lonely widows, and intellectual aristocrats on their spring picnics or with their afternoon tea come to play a role in the the legends of modern nerd culture? How did a book like this shape the careers of people from Tolkien to Gaiman?
In order to answer that question, we must look at how "The Line of Love" contributed to Cabell's world-building. It provides the genetic connection between the two most famous books of the series, "Jurgen" and "Figures of Earth." In so doing, the quest for creative order of Manuel merges with Jurgen's chaos, impacting the fates of generations. As you may know, despite this series being known as the Biography of Dom Manuel, the main book where he features as a living character is "Figures of Earth." In that book, Manuel has a daughter, Melicent. Though fans of this sprawling series are likely to remember the names and mythology associated with Manuel's two daughters Dorothy and (especially) Ettare, it was Melicent and her descendants that first captured my imagination and inspired me to study the Manuel lineage. "Figures of Earth" also features one of my favorite couples in all of literature--the henpecked but powerful wizard Miramon Lluagor and his tough but big-hearted wife Gisele. In the subsequent novel, "Domnei," the son of Miramon (Demetrios) battles with Perion of the Forest over the hand of Melicent. To make a long story short, Perion is victorious and he does eventually wed the fair Melicent. Their first child is Adelaide, who is now the granddaughter of Manuel, and it is she and her progeny who we follow in "The Line." Adelaide marries the Comte de Nointel and has three children. One of these children is Sylvie. Along comes Florian, the "son" of the Vicomte de Puysange. It turns out that Florian is actually the son of the infamous Jurgen, who had a bit of an affair with the Vicomte's wife. It is of Florian's courtship and marriage to Sylvie that concerns the first story of "The Line." From here, the links between the multitude of characters and events spanning the entirety of Cabell's literary career start to branch and grow, weaving a complex tapestry linking both fantasy and real European and American history into a mythology for the West. Cabell ended up dedicating the rest of his life to building this world full of very realistic relationships to the point where he was probably the first to have to write a compendium which outlined this very detailed history. For you Tolkien fans, is this starting to sound familiar?
Both versions of the book open with a dedication to a Mrs. Grundy. This is the figurative name that Cabell liked to use to represent tyrannical propriety--the conventional mores of "good and decent society." You know--the kind of people that have conniptions over your Tweet or that picture you posted on Facebook of last year's Halloween costume. Here, he is defending in advance his choice to publish a racy romance, saying that love and sex are the most important topics for literature. "Who are we to question this, when nine-tenths of us owe our existence to a Summer flirtation?" He rightfully concludes "that love-affairs, little and big" have and always will be "shaping history," thus opening the door to these fictional romances that shaped his history as a writer.
If one follows the lineages that began with these love stories through the centuries, one will come across other familiar names to Cabell fans: the Allonsbys, the Bulmers, the Kennistons, the Musgraves, and the Townsends. In fact, it is through the character of Robert Etheridge Townsend that we see the conclusion to the entire Biography series, and it is also he who (fictionally) wrote much of the Biography in the first place, including "The Cords of Vanity," "From the Hidden Way," and "The Line of Love." Here we see our first major difference between the original "Line of Love" and the Storisende edition. In the original introduction to "The Line," Cabell writes: "Here for little I have followed her, the arch-trickster." By 1921, the Storisende edition added to that sentence "...with a little gracious connivance of Mr. R.E. Townsend, to whom all lyrics hereinafter should be accredited..." It was an interesting choice to later change the "authorship" of "The Line" to be that of Townsend, since in the original version, Cabell also pretended to have not been the author either, making elaborate claims that he found these stories in old manuscripts taken from the extensive libraries of a family chateau. He cites such sources as Nicholas de Caen, Will Sommers, and perhaps even Shakespeare himself. Being a Francophile scholar, Cabell even inserted poems and sayings in Middle French and Latin, which were battling for supremacy during the times this book was set, with Latin being the ultimate loser. Cabell did such a great job playing up faking his "sources" that reviews of his books took for granted that he was merely the editor or translator of older works.
The second major difference we encounter between the two texts is the aforementioned discussion of Florian being the bastard son of Jurgen. This was not part of the original book. Cabell's 1921 changes to "The Line of Love" transformed his little book of romances into a sort of sequel to his infamous "Jurgen." Florian, Jurgen's son, is bewitched on the day of his wedding to Adelaide, causing him to travel thirty years forward in time. He meets three ladies upon recovering consciousness, one of whom is his young bride, now a hefty window in middle-age. He discovers that he disappeared on his wedding day, so she moved on with her life, married another man, and had children, which injures his pride. Aren't marriage vows forever? Isn't love immortal? She takes the whole thing in stride, even teasing him by saying that she is available if he still wants to marry her. And of course he doesn't, citing that she is not the same person. She responds, "So do you quit talking nonsense about immortality and sacraments." Fortunately for Florian, one of the other ladies present is Adelaide's daughter, Sylvie, who is perfectly willing to get it on with Mom's former lover!
This is an awesome and hilarious opening, perfectly combining eerie fantasy reminiscent of something out of the Twilight Zone with a comic deconstruction of marriage and true love. Here you can see Cabell's influence on later writers like Neil Gaiman, Robert Heinlein, and Terry Pratchett. It also expounds on the legend of Melicent, Adelaide's mother from the earlier Manuelian novel "Domnei," who was held captive from her hero by the aforementioned Demetrios until she was no longer young. And it sets the stage for the rest of the bizarre yet profoundly touching stories to follow. From here, the stories largely remain the same from the original version.
Though the book focuses on intimate subjects, it remains epic in scope, consisting of ten (Cabell loved groups of ten, or "dizaines") courtships of minor historical personalities mixed with established fictional ones (like Falstaff and Mistress Quickly). They take place between April 14, 1355 and May 27, 1559, ranging from the fairy-tale land of Poictesme to southern England during the Hundred Years War, which led to the strengthening of the French monarchy under the victorious House of Valois while the Tudors ascended to the English throne. This was a crucial historical setting for the development of Cabell's Manuelian saga. Chivalry is an important theme in the Biography, and Cabell considered the end of the Hundred Years War to begin the decline of chivalry. Also, by incorporating real history into Dom Manuel's lineage, Cabell further blurred another "line," that of reality and fiction. This is how legends are birthed. After all, when do the fables of one's ancestors become historical fact? We are the stories we tell ourselves.
Each episode pays homage to classic romances. Expect beautiful and familiar images of men staring up at a balcony high on a castle tower, serenading the love of their life with lute and voice. Expect sword-fights and knightly chivalry and courtly intrigue and dastardly mustachioed villains. But this is a Cabell book after all, so expect him to turn these classic archetypes on their head--there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns!
"But Warren, you Cabellian caballero," I hear you protest, "this is all very well and good, but why do you find this particular book so fascinating?" Well, there are multiple reasons. The first concerns how it fits in to Cabell's larger Manuel universe and what it says about Cabell as a visionary. "The Line of Love" serves as a bridge between the more traditional fantasy (based in the fictional land of Poictesme) and how it bleeds into the tales of 20th Century Virginia in the latter half of the series. Secondly, a study of the evolution of this book says a lot about the process and magic of creative writing. Here we have a beautiful set of romance stories written by a young man early in his career for a specific purpose, but later in life, as he has gained more wisdom and has reevaluated what he has done with this life and what life means for him, the characters that he created in his youth start calling him again. They take on a life of their own. I don't know if Cabell ever studied Jung, but it is clear that he recognized the archetypes of his creations, and he felt they had a life separate from the books in which they appeared. He had opened a window into their world in 1905, but he knew they had more to say. So he revisits "The Line of Love," and in collaboration with his characters, starts seeing the colors more vividly, the tapestry of life and consciousness more fully. He sees the quest of Dom Manuel being played out in these stories, and he wonders why he never saw it before. These characters carry the "geas" imposed on Dom Manuel by his mother. In Irish folklore, the geas (pronounced "gesh") is a magical obligation. This obligation has been transferred to his progeny, like one's genetics, and no matter how dilute, there are those where the geas manifests as inescapable as one's eye color or receding hair line inherited from ancestors long ago.
I believe it is in "The Line of Love" that Cabell first really started to develop the direction of his final Storisende epic, when he realized that his career had been not about individual stories and characters, but about the ongoing quest of our ancestors as played out in our lives. When he decided to refer to his books as part of the "Biography of Manuel," he was not referring to the adventures of this one Count of Poictesme, but the life of this "geas" throughout the centuries. It is a twist on the reincarnation story. H.L. Mencken writes of Cabell in his foreword to the 1921 edition, "the beautiful, to him, is not a state of being, but an eternal becoming."
Finally, I guess I have some personal reasons for being so endeared to this one. I first read "The Line of Love" while my father was on his last few days on this earth. He was on hospice and I was sitting at his bedside kind of just waiting for the end, and I just so happened to have this book with me for company during this rather depressing vigil. Now back then, I was certainly your typical angry young man. It was easier for me to feel rage than to feel sadness or grief. Or more often, I would shut down and feel nothing at all. You know--tough guy. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of stuff. And that's probably what I was doing with this book. I was reading some pretty romances instead of allowing myself to work through the grief. When my dad eventually passed, I was charged with writing an obituary to print in the paper and to read at his graveside service. And while I was writing my little speech, looking through old photographs and recalling memories of what my dad meant to me and my family, I found I was incorporating the book I was reading into my thoughts. I realized there was a lot of Dom Manuel in my dad, and as such, there was a little of Dom Manuel in me. I started to realize just how much I was like my dad, in all the "good" ways and the "bad." My sister and I started going through his personal affects, and we uncovered some ancient pictures of women he used to date--people that he knew and loved long before he met my mother, but people I guess that he felt a special ongoing attachment to that he couldn't bare to throw their pictures in the garbage. I know this sounds weird, but I found them all rather attractive. Not just attractive--it was like I had known them and loved them before. In fact, one of them looked a lot like my wife. For some reason, it hit me. He wasn't gone after all. His biography continued on in me and my sister, and in our children. In all of us, there is a "line of love" that never ends and never dies.
From then on, I developed an acceptance of who I was, and a different relationship with loss. I became much more mindful of my geas. I am a very different person now than I was before my dad died, but I am also still me--just older and more sane (or more insane, depending on how you look at it). As a kid, I vowed to never be like my dad, but then I developed a new understanding of him and a kinship to him when I realized I was doing all the same stupid shit he did. Only it wasn't stupid. There was and is a meaning and purpose behind it all. And it made me think of the legacy that I want to leave for my kids. Where do I want them to start off their Quest? And with what tools? You know there is always a bit of music or a movie or a book that you will always remember for the role it played in certain parts of your life. Well, "The Line of Love" is one of those for me.
Maybe it will touch you in a similar way. Maybe not. At least I hope I was able to bring some important perspective to this almost forgotten work of art and encourage some of you to give it a try or a second look. I don't think it particularly matters which version you read as they are not so completely different. I would say that this book started life in 1905 as a handsome book, a favorite of people like Teddy Roosevelt, that was written by a master of the English language. But 16 years later, Cabell made it a masterpiece. This is one of the few times I will concede that shoehorning a previously unrelated property into a fantasy series actually worked. The "Line" picks up again in the 9th book of the series, "The High Place," in 1698 with yet another Florian, a descendent of Jurgen, who is very much like his ancestor...
Neil Gaiman once said that Cabell's work can infect you. Well, I'm among the infected, and this is one of the books responsible. If you are studying modern fantasy, or are curious about Cabell's Dom Manuel series, or just love good literature, don't pass this one by.
Merged review:
This review will incorporate two versions of "The Line of Love," which has become one of my favorites of James Cabell's enigmatic Biography of Dom Manuel. Now those of you interested in this landmark fantasy series may be saying to yourself, "I always thought this was one of the books that really had nothing to do with the series. So how did Cabell end up bringing this book into the Dom Manuel universe? And why should we care?" Well, buckle up my Silver Stallions, because I am here to answer all of your burning questions!
"The Line of Love" is the eighth "book" in the seventh volume of the definitive Storisende edition of the Biography of Dom Manuel. It is also the third in the series to not have been originally intended as a Dom Manuel fantasy. Instead, it was simply supposed to be a series of pretty love stories. The original edition is an absolutely gorgeous volume printed in 1905 by Harper Brothers and richly illustrated in color by the famous Howard Pyle. It is an absolute joy to hold in your hand, and highlights that special experience of reading a physical book that we miss in our modern life of e-books and cheap paperbacks.
But how did this dainty little thing that was meant to be read by courting debutantes, lonely widows, and intellectual aristocrats on their spring picnics or with their afternoon tea come to play a role in the the legends of modern nerd culture? How did a book like this shape the careers of people from Tolkien to Gaiman?
In order to answer that question, we must look at how "The Line of Love" contributed to Cabell's world-building. It provides the genetic connection between the two most famous books of the series, "Jurgen" and "Figures of Earth." In so doing, the quest for creative order of Manuel merges with Jurgen's chaos, impacting the fates of generations. As you may know, despite this series being known as the Biography of Dom Manuel, the main book where he features as a living character is "Figures of Earth." In that book, Manuel has a daughter, Melicent. Though fans of this sprawling series are likely to remember the names and mythology associated with Manuel's two daughters Dorothy and (especially) Ettare, it was Melicent and her descendants that first captured my imagination and inspired me to study the Manuel lineage. "Figures of Earth" also features one of my favorite couples in all of literature--the henpecked but powerful wizard Miramon Lluagor and his tough but big-hearted wife Gisele. In the subsequent novel, "Domnei," the son of Miramon (Demetrios) battles with Perion of the Forest over the hand of Melicent. To make a long story short, Perion is victorious and he does eventually wed the fair Melicent. Their first child is Adelaide, who is now the granddaughter of Manuel, and it is she and her progeny who we follow in "The Line." Adelaide marries the Comte de Nointel and has three children. One of these children is Sylvie. Along comes Florian, the "son" of the Vicomte de Puysange. It turns out that Florian is actually the son of the infamous Jurgen, who had a bit of an affair with the Vicomte's wife. It is of Florian's courtship and marriage to Sylvie that concerns the first story of "The Line." From here, the links between the multitude of characters and events spanning the entirety of Cabell's literary career start to branch and grow, weaving a complex tapestry linking both fantasy and real European and American history into a mythology for the West. Cabell ended up dedicating the rest of his life to building this world full of very realistic relationships to the point where he was probably the first to have to write a compendium which outlined this very detailed history. For you Tolkien fans, is this starting
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews