 Two Sought Adventure, the first published story collection exclusively featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, published by Gnome Press in 1958 | |
| |
| Author | Fritz Leiber |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Sword and sorcery |
| Published | 1939–1988 |
| No. of books | 7 |
| Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Two Sought Adventure, 1939 |
| Created by | Fritz Leiber |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Barbarian (Fafhrd) Thief (Gray Mouser) |
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are two sword-and-sorcery heroes appearing in stories written by American author Fritz Leiber. They are the protagonists of what are probably Leiber's best-known stories. One of his motives in writing them was to have a couple of fantasy heroes closer to true human nature than the likes of Howard's Conan the Barbarian or Burroughs's Tarzan.[1]
Fafhrd is a very tall (nearly 7 feet (2.1 m)) and strong northern barbarian, skilled at both swordsmanship and singing. The Mouser is a small (not much more than 5 feet (1.5 m)) mercurial thief, gifted and deadly at swordsmanship (often using a sword in one hand and a long dagger or main-gauche in the other), as well as a former wizard's apprentice who retains some skill at magic. Fafhrd talks like a romantic, but his strength and practicality usually wins through, while the cynical-sounding Mouser is prone to showing strains of sentiment at unexpected times. Both are rogues, living in a decadent world where only the ruthless and cynical survive. They spend a lot of time drinking, feasting, wenching, brawling, stealing, and gambling, while are seldom fussy about who hires their swords. Still, they are humane and—most of all—relish true adventure.
The characters were loosely modeled upon Leiber himself and his friend Harry Otto Fischer. Fischer initially created them in a letter to Leiber in September 1934, naming at the same time their home city of Lankhmar. In 1936, Leiber finished the first Fafhrd and Gray Mouser novella, "Adept's Gambit", and began work on a second, "The Tale of the Grain Ships". At the same time, Fischer was writing the beginning of "The Lords of Quarmall". "Adept's Gambit" would not see publication until 1947, while "The Lords of Quarmall" would be finished by Leiber and published in 1964. His second story, "The Tale of the Grain Ships", would become the prototype for "Scylla's Daughter" (1961) and, later, the novel The Swords of Lankhmar (1968).
The stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser respectively were only loosely connected until the 1960s, when Leiber organized them chronologically and added additional material in preparation for paperback publication. Starting as young men, the two separately meet their female lovers, meet each other, and lose both their lovers in the same night, which explains both their friendship and the arrested adolescence of their lifestyles. However, in later stories, the two mature, learn leadership, and eventually settle down with new female partners on the Iceland-like Rime Isle. The novels have many picaresque elements, and are sometimes described as picaresque on the whole.[2][3][4][5]
- ^ "Author's Foreword", Ill-Met in Lankhmar, 1995, White Wolf Publishing
- ^ Thompson, William (2014). "The First & Second Books of Lankhmar". SF Site. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- ^ "1990: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser". Totally Epic. Epic Comics. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- ^ "Review of "The First Book of Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber". Speculiction. 8 November 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2022.
- ^ "we ARE Rogue". The Outcast Rogue. Tumblr. 14 January 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2022.