This is the exuberant, often wryly comic, first-person account of a young Englishman's imprudent adventures, set against a background of political strife in 19th-century Uruguay.

"An eccentric masterpiece" -- Ursula K. LeGuin
"A new climate of the imagination" -- C. S. Lewis
"A masterpiece" -- James Stephens
This is the book that shaped the landscape of contemporary science fiction and fantasy. When The Lord of the Rings first appeared, the critics inevitably compared it to this 1922 landmark work. Tolkien himself frankly acknowledged its influence, with warm praise for its imaginative appeal. The story of a remote planet's great war between two kingdoms, it ranks as the Iliad of heroic fantasy.
In the best traditions of Homeric epics, Norse...