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This book is about narrative literary history, chronologically arranged, detailing the complex of literary strands which began to surface in the eighteenth century, and which ultimately coalesced as the fantasy genre following the success of Tolkien's work in the 1960s. Using the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, the first (1969-74) publishing project demarcating the genre as it still stands, as the touchpoint in identifying what the author terms the pre-genre fantasy canon, this book contends that what became termed fantasy after the Tolkien boom had its beginnings in a creative literary response to eighteenth century antiquarianism. While some studies of individual authors have implicitly engaged related material, there has been no extended study specifically detailing how this phenomena began, ultimately resulting in Tolkien's work and the fantasy genre itself (most studies tend to be structured around thematic questions). The only narrative literary history of fantasy with this scope, Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds (1973), is dated and long out of print.
