Cream of the Jest (original 1917; edition 1972)

"Le pays ou je voulais aller, tu m'y as mene en songe, cette nuit, et tu etais belle ... ah! que tu etais belle! ... Mais, comme je n'ai aime que ton ombre, tu me dispenseras, chere tete, de remercier ta realite."

To LOISA NELSON
"At me ab amore tuo diducet nulla senectus"

Much has been written critically about Felix Kennaston since the disappearance of his singular personality form the field of contemporary writers; and Mr. Froser's Biography contains all it is necessary to know as to the facts of Kennaston's life.

And I reflected that it is only preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.

The Cream of the Jest was published in 1917 in its own volume. It was reissued in 1922 with an introduction by Harold Ward. It was included in the Modern Library in 1927. It was always subtitled A Comedy of Evasion. The edition edited by Joseph Flora, and the Wildside, Kessinger and other generic reprints are of the stand-alone edition.

In 1930, in the collected Works of Cabell (the Storisende edition), Cream was combined in one volume with The Lineage of Lichfield and so they shared the subtitle Two Comedies of Evasion. This double edition is the one that that was reissued in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series with an introduction by Lin Carter (and an isbn prefix beginning with 0345-).

Stand alone editions of Cream have now been separated from Cream+Lineage double editions (containing two distinct works), and should not be combined. Probably a few inadequately described copies are in the wrong group, but the double edition can be identified by "Lineage" or "Two Comedies" or "Lin Carter" or "Ballantine" or an isbn beginning with "0345".