The Cords of Vanity: A Comedy of Shirking - Mr. Cabell gives an airy chronicle of the love affairs of his hero, Robert Townsend, who has adopted a infancya as a profession, and never gets out of boyhood. Townsend is also one of the self-hypnotized persons who, in the moment of saying it, believes everything that he says, and thus romances alluringly of himself with no regard to the fetters of facta truly a captivating liar. In this a higher carelessnessa all his contradictions and repetitions are merged into a fine unity. By playing at emotion so long he finally breaks down the inward integrities, so that he is not able to realize when he is acting a part and when he is sincere. And his sin overtakes him in the circumstance that, having played at love so long, he finally is not able to love anybody in reality.a a Edwin Markham, in N. Y. American.
Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship - Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship (1913) is a fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell, set in the imaginary French province of Poictesme during the second half of the 13th century. It tells the story of Dom Manuel's daughter Melicent, and of the disastrous struggle between her successive husbands Demetrios of Anatolia and Perion de la Forêt. Carl Van Doren characterised the book as "Mr. Cabell's highest flight in the representation of the extravagant woman-worship developed out of the chivalric code", and as being "unified and dramatic beyond any other of the Cabell novels".
Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances - Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances (1921) is a fantasy novel or ironic romance by James Branch Cabell, set in the imaginary French province of Poictesme during the first half of the 13th century. The book follows the earthly career of Dom Manuel the Redeemer from his origins as a swineherd, through his elevation to the rank of Count of Poictesme, to his death.
The Jewel Merchants: A Comedy in One Act - Author - Prudence urges me here to forestall detection, by conceding that this brief play has no pretension to "literary" quality. It is a piece in its inception designed for, and in its making swayed by, the requirements of the little theatre stage. The one virtue which anybody anywhere could claim for The Jewel Merchants is the fact that it "acts" easily and rather effectively.
And candor compels the admission forthwith that the presence of this anchoritic merit in the wilderness is hardly due to me. When circumstances and the Little Theatre League of Richmond combined to bully me into contriving the dramatization of a short story called Balthazar's Daughter, I docilely converted this tale into a one-act play of which you will find hereinafter no sentence. The comedy I wrote is now at one with the lost dramaturgy of Pollio and of Posidippus, and is even less likely ever to be resurrected for mortal auditors.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice - It is a humorous romp through a mediaeval cosmos, including a send-up of Arthurian legend and excursions to heaven and hell as in The Divine Comedy. Cabell's work is recognized as a landmark in the creation of the comic fantasy novel, influencing Terry Prachett and many others.
The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck: A Comedy of Limitations - Author - Nightly I mark and praise, or great or small, Such stars as proudly struggle one by one To heavens highest place, as Procyon, Antares, Naos, Tejat and Nibal Attain supremacy, and proudly fall, Still glorious, and glitter, and are gone So very soon; whilst steadfast and alone Polaris gleams, and is not changed at all. Daily I find some gallant dream that ranges The heights of heaven; and as others do, I serve my dream until my dream estranges Its errant bondage, and I note anew That nothing dims, nor shakes, nor mars, nor changes, Fond faith in you and in my love of you.
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