A review by bhaines
A Dreamer's Tales by Lord Dunsany

Good classic stuff. Lots of invented cities, often in collapse. Kind of an Invisible Cities vibe, "Idle Days on the Yann" especially felt like it had to be an inspiration. Always a traveler speaking with longing about a thing he will never see, or never see again. A city who taxes those passing through by making them tell an idle tale, which are collected and given to the sad king.

A guard who

turned from me and would say no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with ancient custom

Also got black riders vibes at some points with the almost goofy earnestness and angst of people in despair. And the stupid pun in "The Field."

...once I met with a traveler who said that somewhere in the midst of a great desert are gathered together the souls of all dead cities. He said that he was lost once in a place where there was no water, and he heard their voices speaking all the night."
But I said: "I was once without water in a desert and heard a city speaking to me, but knew not whether it really spoke to me or not, for on that day I heard so many terrible things, and only some of them were true."
And the man with the black hair said: "I believe it to be true"

"In Zaccarath" as good an Ozymandias take as any. Even with his sidebar about the scent of blethany.

"The Field" and "The Day of the Poll" were my least favorite.

Closes with "The Unhappy Body" which puts everything else in a more serious context and justifies the earnestness. Shares some of the depressive creative atmosphere of "The City of Dreadful Night". Lord Dunsany says

No sensible body cares for its soul. A soul is a little thing, and should not rule a body. You should drink and smoke more till he ceases to trouble you

but Yeats* says that as a swan isn't a burden to the lake, neither is a man burdened by the soul that is in him.

*idk I can't remember