Biography of the Life of Manuel

The story of Manuel, a swineherd in thirteenth-century France, who becomes Count Manuel of Poictesme. The motto on his coat of arms is "Mundus Vult Decipi"--The world wishes to be deceived. It is in playing on others' expectations that he rises to hero status and becomes Manuel the Redeemer.

"Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice," an entry in the Poictesme series, is an epic fantasy voyage as well as an erotic fable. Cabell himself wrote: "This fable is, as the world itself, a book wherein each man will find what his nature enables him to see; which gives us back each his own image; and which teaches us each the lesson that each of us desires to learn." Jurgen was banned for decades because of its explicit content. It was, and remains, a groundbreaking early fantasy novel and a worthy addition to the Wildside Fantasy Classics line.