Taboo (1921) is a comic fantasy novel by James Branch Cabell. Set
in a world where history and fantasy collide, where a lowly
pawnbroker can encounter monsters, gods, and devils, Taboo is a
follow up to Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, which was the subject of
an obscenity trial pursued by the New York Society for the
Suppression of Vice. In 1923, after winning his case, Cabell made
sure to immortalize the event with a revised edition featuring a
"lost" chapter where Jurgen is persecuted for his writing by
grotesque Philistines. In Taboo, one work in a series of novels,
essays, and poems known as the Biography of the Life of Manuel,
Cabell explores the cultural environment that led to his work's
persecution, inventing a whole world in which to air his
grievances. "Since time's beginning, every age has had its literary
taboos, selecting certain things-more or less arbitrarily, but
usually some natural function-as the things which must not be
written about. To violate any such taboo so long as it stays
prevalent is to be 'indecent': and that seems absolutely all there
is to say concerning this topic, apart from furnishing some
impressive historical illustration..." While most authors in the
midst of an obscenity trial would be content to let their lawyer do
the talking, James Branch Cabell took the opportunity to reflect on
the matter in the only way he knew how. In this work, written in
the style of medieval history, Cabell tells the story of Philistia,
a country dedicated to the persecution of all manner of ill-defined
vice and taboo. Bold and satirical, this thinly veiled critique of
his own, high-minded critics is essential to understanding Cabell's
vision of art. Cabell's work has long been described as escapist,
his novels and stories derided as fantastic and obsessive
recreations of a world lost long ago. To read Taboo, however, is to
understand that the issues therein-the struggle for power, the
unspoken distance between men and women-were vastly important not
only at the time of its publication, but in our own, divisive
world. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of James Branch Cabell's Taboo is a
classic of fantasy and romance reimagined for modern readers.
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