Songs and Sonnets Atlantean

Songs and Sonnets Atlantean

Jacket illustration by Gordon R. Barnett for first Songs and Sonnets Atlantean
Author	Donald Sidney-Fryer
Cover artist	Gordon R. Barnett
Language	English
Genre	poetry
Publisher	Arkham House, Wildside Press, Phosphor Lantern Press, Hippocampus Press
Publication date	First Series 1971; Second Series 2003; Third Series 2005; trilogy 2008
Publication place	United States
Media type	Printed volumes
Pages	First Series; xxx, 134 pp.; Second Series 159 pp.; Third Series 192 pp.; trilogy 550 pp.

Songs and Sonnets Atlantean can either refer to the first volume in a trilogy of collections of poems by Donald Sidney-Fryer published in 1971, or to the complete trilogy. In each volume, several individual poems and multi-poem sequences are presented as being poems and fragments written by several poets in the lost continent of Atlantis and translated into English by Sidney-Fryer. All three Atlantean collections were gathered in the 2008 volume The Atlantis Fragments: The Trilogy of Songs and Sonnets Atlantean. The three volumes of poetry have been praised by critics.

The first volume in the series is prefaced by a lengthy scholarly introduction explaining how the poems were created in Atlantis, how they were lost for thousands of years, and how they were rediscovered. The introduction claims Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser translated some of them into English before Sidney-Fryer's translations. The introduction's author is presented as "Dr. Ibid M. Andor", who also wrote extensive notes for individual poems. Dr. Andor is actually a pseudonym for Donald Sidney-Fryer.

Sidney-Fryer began writing the poems in March 1961. ^[1] Songs and Sonnets Atlantean was released in 1971 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,045 copies. The introduction and notes attributed to Dr. Ibid M. Andor are actually written by Fryer.

The second volume in the trilogy, Songs and Sonnets Atlantean: The Second Series, was published by Wildside Press in 2003.

Songs and Sonnets Atlantean: The Third Series was self-published by Sidney-Fryer while he lived in Los Angeles, under his own Phosphor Lantern Press company name, in 2005.

Finally, in 2008 New York publisher Hippocampus Press produced all three books together in one volume titled The Atlantis Fragments:The Trilogy of the Songs and Sonnets Atlantean. The hardcover edition also includes a front endpaper map of the continent of Atlantis "and its Relationship to the Known World," back endpaper maps of showing detail of the isle of Atlantis and its capitol, the city of Atlantis; and an introduction by Brian Stableford.

Sidney-Fryer's companion novel about the end of Atlantis, The Atlantis Fragments: The Novel, was published in 2011.

Contents of First Series

Songs and Sonnets Atlantean contains the following poems:

1. "Introduction", by Dr. Ibid M. Andor
2. "Avalonessys"
3. "The Crown and Trident Imperial"
4. "Atlantis"
5. "The Rose and the Thorn"
6. "Rose Escariate"
7. "'O Ebon-Colored Rose'"
8. "Your Mouth of Pomegranate"
9. "As Buds and Blossoms in the Month of May the Rose"
10. "To Clark Ashton Smith"
11. "Pavane"
12. "When We Were Prince and Princess"
13. "The Crown and Trident"
14. "Song"
15. "'Thy Spirit Walks the Sea'"
16. "Recompense"
17. "To a Youth"
18. "Spenserian Stanza-Sonnet Empourpré"
19. "A Symbol for All Splendor Lost"
20. "The Ashes in the Rose Garden"
21. "To Edmund Spenser"
22. "Rose Verdastre"
23. "Ave Atque Vale"
24. "Thaïs and Alexander in Persepolis"
25. "A Fragment"
26. "O fair dark eyes, O glances turned aside"
27. "The Sydnus"
28. "Golden Mycenae"
29. "Lullaby"
30. Minor Chronicles of Atlantis
    • "Proem"
    • "The Hippokamp"
    • "The Alpha Huge"
    • "The River Called Amphus"
    • "The Amphus Delta"
    • "The Imperial Crown Jewels of Atlantis"
    • "The Atlantean Obelisk"
    • "The Garden of Jealous Roses"
    • "The Tale of an Olden Love"
    • "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess"
    • "Reciprocity"
    • "The Iffinnix"
    • "A Vision of Strange Splendor"
31. "Kilcolman Castle: 20 August 1965"
32. "Aubade"
33. "The Lilac Hedge at Cassell Prairie: 27 May 1967"
34. "Black Poppy and Black Lotus"
35. "The House of Roses"
36. "'The Musical Note of Swans...Before Their Death'"
37. "Green Sleeves"
38. "O Beautiful Dark-Amber Eyes of Old"
39. "The Forsaken Palace"
40. "For the 'Shapes of Clay' of Ambrose Bierce"
41. "Connaissance Fatale"
42. "For the 'Black Beetles in Amber' of Ambrose Bierce"
43. "Offrande Exotique"
44. Sonnets on an Empire of Many Waters
    • I. "Here, where the fountains of the deep-sea flow"
    • II. "Atlantis"
    • III. "Gades"
    • IV. "Atlantigades"
    • V. "Atkantharia"
    • VI. "Iffrikonn-Yssthia"
    • VII. "Atalantessys"
    • VIII. "Atlantillia"
    • IX. "Atatemthessys"
    • X. "At-Thulonn"
    • XI. "Avalonessys"
    • XII. "Poseidonis"
    • XIII. "The Merchant-Princes"
    • XIV. "An Argosy of Trade"
    • XV. "Memories of the Astazhan"
    • XVI. "A Letter from Valoth"
    • XVII. "No, not until the final age of Earth"
45. "Notes", by Dr. Ibid M. Andor (Fryer)

References

1. Sidney-Fryer, Hobgoblin Apollo: The Autobiography of Donald Sidney-Fryer (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016), p. 181.

• Jaffery, Sheldon (1989). The Arkham House Companion. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc. pp. 100–101. ISBN   1-55742-005-X.
• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 46.
• Joshi, S.T. (1999). Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. pp. 125–127. ISBN   0-87054-176-5.
• Nielsen, Leon (2004). Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 114–115. ISBN   0-7864-1785-4.