Let us celebrate James Branch Cabell

Slocki, follow my link above and that's pretty much the best immediate Net source of further info on him and his work, along with links to a couple of fan pages and so forth. The Jurgen case brought him wider attention and more admirers but he already had quite a few, including Mark Twain and Carl Van Vechten and the like. I haven't read his autobiography As I Remember It but I suspect it's a winner.

The actual sequence of intertwined Poictesme works, counting stories, a play and a genealogy, approaches something like 25 publications. Then there's the contemporary (well, for his time) novel The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck, for instance...

If you'd like to check out some of his work directly:

The Certain Hour

The Cream of the Jest

...and Jurgen itself, complete with Pape's illustrations.

Give me some time to dig through the online Jurgen and I'll find the chapter with the most outrageously sly depiction/discussion of sex in fiction I had yet encountered when I first did read it, at sixteen or something like that. It probably still holds up perfectly well or even better nowadays. It's just a dialogue between the lead male character and (I seem to recall) the lead female character -- except it's clearly NOT just a dialogue.

obviously, mom wouldn't have had me check the book out had she known about the medieval nookie therein.

Some years ago (said the God of Jurgen's grandmother) it was reported to Koshchei that scepticism was abroad in his universe, and that one walked therein who would be contented with no rational explanation. "Bring me this infidel," says Koshc hei: so they brought to him in the void a little bent grey woman in an old grey shawl. "Now, tell me why you will not believe," says Koshchei, "in things as they are."

Then the decent little bent grey woman answered civilly; "I do not know, sir, who you may happen to be. But, since you ask me, everybody knows that things as they are must be regarded as temporary afflictions, and as trials through which we are ri ghteously condemned to pass, in order to attain to eternal life with our loved ones in Heaven."

"Ali, yes," --said Koshchei, who made things as they are; ah, yes, to be sure! and how did you learn of this?

"Why, every Sunday morning the priest discoursed to us about Heaven, and of how happy we would be there after death."

"Has this woman died, then?" asked Koshchei.

"Yes sir," they told him,--" recently. And she will believe nothing we explain to her, but demands to be taken to Heaven."

"Now, this is very vexing," Koshchei said, "and I cannot, of course, put up with such scepticism. That would never do. So why do you not convey her to this Heaven which she believes in, and thus put an end to the matter?"

"But, sir," they told him, "there is no such place."

Then Koshchei reflected. "It is certainly strange that a place which does not exist should be a matter of public knowledge in another place. Where does this woman come from?"

"From Earth," they told him.

"Where is that?" he asked: and they explained to him as well as they could.

"Oh, yes, over that way," Koshchei interrupted. "I remember. Now-but what is your name, woman who wish to go to Heaven?"

"Steinvor, sir: and if you please I am rather in a hurry to be with my children again. You see, I have not seen any of. them for a long while."

"But stay," said Koshchei: "what is that which comes into this woman's eyes as she speaks of her children?" They told him it was love.

"Did I create this love?" says Koshchei, who made things as they are. And they told him, no: and that there were many sorts of love, but that this especial sort was an illusion which women had invented for themselves, and which they exhibited in all dealings with their children. And Koshchei sighed.

"Tell me about your children," Koshchei then said to Steinvor: "and look at me as you talk, so that I may see your eyes."

So Steinvor talked of her children: and Koshchei, who made all things, listened very attentively. Of Coth she told him, of her only son, confessing Coth was the finest boy that ever lived, --" a little wild, sir, at first, but then you know what boys are,-"-and telling of how well Coth had done in business and of how he had even risen to be an alderman. Koshchei, who made all things, seemed properly impressed. Then Steinvor talked of her daughters, of Imperia and Lindamira and Christine: of Imperia's beauty, and of Lindamira's bravery under the mishaps of an unlucky marriage, and of Christine's superlative housekeeping. "Fine women, sir, every one of them, with childre n of their own! and to me they still seem such babies, bless them!" And the decent little bent grey woman laughed. "I have been very lucky in my children, sir, and in my grandchildren too," she told Koshchei. "There is Jurgen, now, my Coth's boy! You may not believe it, sir, but there is a story I must tell you about Jurgen--" So she ran on very happily and proudly, while Koshchei, who made all things, listened, and watched the eyes of Steinvor.

Then privately Koshchei asked, "Are these children and grandchildren of Steinvor such as she reports?"

"No, sir," they told him privately.

So as Steinvor talked Koshchei devised illusions in accordance with that which Steinvor said, and created such children and grandchildren as she described. Male and female he created them standing behind Steinvor, and all were beautiful and stainless: and Koshchei gave life to these illusions.

Then Koshchei bade her turn about. She obeyed: and Koshchei was forgotten.

Well, Koshchei sat there alone in the void, looking not very happy, and looking puzzled, and drumming upon his knee, and staring at the little bent grey woman, who was busied with her children and grandchildren, and had forgotten all about him. "B ut surely, Lindamira," he hears Steinvor say, we are not yet in Heaven." -- "Ah, my dear mother," replies her illusion of Lindamira," to be with you again is Heaven: and besides, it may be that Heaven is like this, after all." ;-" My darling child, it is sweet of you to say that, and exactly like you to say that. But you know very well that Heaven is fully described in the Book of Revelations, in the Bible, as the glorious place that Heaven is. Whereas, as you can see for yourself, around us is nothing at all, and no person at all except that very civil gentleman to whom I was just talking; and who, between ourselves, seems woefully uninformed about the most ordinary matters."

"Bring Earth to me," says Koshchei. This was done, and Koshchei looked over the planet, and found a Bible. Koshchei opened the Bible, and read the Revelation of St. John the Divine, while Steinvor talked with her illusions. "I see," said Koshchei. "The idea is a little garish. Still-! "So he replaced the Bible, and bade them put Earth, too, in its proper place, for Koshchei dislikes wasting anything. Then Koshchei smiled and created Heaven about Steinvor and her illusions, and he made Heaven just such a place as was described in the book.

"And so, Jurgen, that was how it came about," ended the God of Jurgen's grandmother. "And Me also Koshchei created at that time, with the seraphim and the saints and all the blessed, very much as you see us :and, of course, he caused us to have been here always, since the beginning of time, because that, too, was in the book."

Queen Freydis looked up from the flames, toward Dom Manuel, very sadly.
Freydis shrugged, flinging out her hands above the heads of the accursed
beasts. "And at the last I cannot do that, either. So do you two dreary,
unimportant, well-mated people remain undestroyed, now that I go to seek
my husband, and now I endeavor to win my pardon for not letting him
torment you. Eh, I was tempted, gray Manuel, to let my masterful fine
husband have his pleasure of you, and of this lean ugly hobbling
creature and her brat, too, as formerly you had your pleasure of me. But
women are so queerly fashioned that at the last I cannot, quite, consent
to harm this gray, staid, tedious fellow, nor any of his chattels. For
all passes in this world save one thing only: and though the young
Manuel whom I loved in a summer that is gone, be nowadays as perished as
that summer's gay leaves, it is certain a woman's folly does not ever
perish."

"Indeed, I did not merit that you should care for me," says Manuel,
rather unhappily. "But I have always been, and always shall be sincerely
fond of you, Freydis, and for that reason I rejoice to deduce that you
are not, now, going to do anything violent and irreparable and such as
your better nature would afterward regret."

"I loved you once," she said, "and now I am assured the core of you was
always a cold and hard and colorless and very common pebble. But it does
not matter now that I am a mortal woman. Either way, you have again made
use of me. I have afforded you shelter when you were homeless. And now
again you will be getting your desire."

Queen Freydis went to the window, and lifted the scarlet curtain figured
with ramping gold dragons; but the crouching beasts stayed by the hearth,
and they continued to look at Dom Manuel.

"Yes, now again, gray Manuel, you will be getting your desire. That ship
which shows at the river bend, with serpents and castles painted on its
brown sails, is Miramon Lluagor's ship, which he has sent to fetch you
from Sargyll: and the last day of your days of exile is now over. For
Miramon is constrained by one who is above us all; therefore Miramon
comes gladly and very potently to assist you. And I--who have served
your turn!--I may now depart, to look for Sesphra, and for my pardon if
I can get it."

"But whither do you go, dear Freydis?" Dom Manuel spoke as though he
again felt quite fond of her.

"What does that matter," she answered, looking long and long at him,
"now that Count Manuel has no further need of me?" Then Freydis looked
at Niafer, lying there in a charmed sleep. "I neither love nor entirely
hate you, ugly and lame and lean and fretful Niafer, but assuredly I do
not envy you. You are welcome to your fidgeting gray husband. My husband
is a ruthless god. My husband does not grow old and tender-hearted and
subservient to me, and he never will." Thereafter Freydis bent downward,
and Freydis kissed the child she had christened. "Some day you will be a
woman, Melicent, and then you will be loving some man or another man. I
could hope that you will then love the man who will make you happy, but
that sort of man has not yet been found."

Dom Manuel came to her, not heeding the accursed beasts at all, and he
took both the hands of Freydis in his hands. "My dear, and do you think
I am a happy man?"

She looked up at him: when she answered, her voice trembled. "I made you
happy, Manuel. I would have made you happy always."

"I wonder if you would have? Ah, well, at all events, the obligation was
upon me. At no time in a man's life, I find, is there lacking some
obligation or another: and we must meet each as we best can, not hoping
to succeed, just aiming not to fall short too far. No, it is not a merry
pursuit. And it is a ruining pursuit!"

She said, "I had not thought ever to be sorry for you--Why should I
grieve for you, gray traitor?"

Harshly he answered: "Oho, I am not proud of what I have made of my
life, and of your life, and of the life of that woman yonder, but do you
think I will be whining about it! No, Freydis: the boy that loved and
deserted you is here,"--he beat upon his breast,--"locked in, imprisoned
while time lasts, dying very lonelily. Well, I am a shrewd gaoler: he
shall not get out. No, even at the last, dear Freydis, there is the bond
of silence."

She said, impotently, "I am sorry--Even at the last you contrive for me
a new sorrow--"

For a moment they stood looking at each other, and she remembered
thereafter his sad and quizzical smiling. These two had nothing more to
share in speech or deed.

http://www.wildsidepress.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=WP1&Category_Code=cabell1

I can't complain, though, as it covers more than just the Del Rey reprints from the seventies, so it'll help fill in some gaps. Everything else still out of print seems to be going for huge prices used, up to about $100, but I haven't checked every vendor yet.