In a 2009 essay on the works of pioneering writer Lord Dunsay, Jo Walton explained his significance to the world of uncanny fiction. “Lord Dunsany wasn’t writing fantasy, because what he was writing was defining the space in which fantasy could later happen,” Walton wrote — and praised his ability “to take poetic images and airy tissues of imagination and weight them down at the corners with perfect details to craft a net to catch dreams in.”