# The Worm Ouroboros - Work: Novel - Date: 1922 - Made by: E. R. Eddison (Author) - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-worm-ouroboros/ > The lords of Demonland wage a war of magnificent pride against the sorcerer-king of Witchland — and when they win, they ask the gods to let it all begin again. **Why it matters:** E. R. Eddison's saga-voiced epic was the most ambitious invented-world fantasy before Tolkien, who admired it while disliking much of it; its 1967 paperback revival helped build the adult fantasy boom that fed D&D's first players. ## Quick answers **When was The Worm Ouroboros first published?** The Worm Ouroboros was first published in 1922. **Who created The Worm Ouroboros?** The Worm Ouroboros was made by E. R. Eddison (author). **What kind of work is The Worm Ouroboros?** The Worm Ouroboros is a novel in the High / Epic Fantasy and Mythic Fantasy tradition. **Why is The Worm Ouroboros important?** E. R. Eddison's saga-voiced epic was the most ambitious invented-world fantasy before Tolkien, who admired it while disliking much of it; its 1967 paperback revival helped build the adult fantasy boom that fed D&D's first players. ## Overview *The Worm Ouroboros* is heroic fantasy at full magnificence: an epic war between the lords of Demonland — Juss, Goldry Bluszco, Brandoch Daha and Spitfire — and King Gorice XII of Witchland, a sorcerer who maintains his power by dreadful conjurations in his iron tower at Carcë. It is written in a gorgeous pastiche of Jacobean English, crowded with sea battles, sieges, duels, treacheries and wonders, and populated by heroes who are glorious, proud and almost indifferent to the cost of their glory. Published in 1922 by the English civil servant [E. R. Eddison](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/e-r-eddison/), it is the grandest invented-world fantasy written before [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/), and one of the strangest. Its title names the serpent that devours its own tail — and the book ends, famously, where it began. ## Origins Eric Rücker Eddison spent his working life at the Board of Trade, from 1906 until his retirement in 1938, rising to senior rank. His private passion was Old Norse literature; he translated *Egil's Saga* in 1930, and *The Worm Ouroboros* is saturated in the saga world's values of honor, courage and fame won in battle. From Elizabethan and Jacobean literature he drew the opulent, archaic style, and from Renaissance romance such marvels as the hippogriff, the flying creature invented by Ariosto in *[Orlando Furioso](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/orlando-furioso/)*. The book was published by Jonathan Cape with illustrations by Keith Henderson. Eddison later returned to the same universe in the Zimiamvian trilogy: *Mistress of Mistresses* (1935), *A Fish Dinner in Memison* (1941) and the unfinished *The Mezentian Gate* (published 1958). ## The story An Englishman named Lessingham is carried in a dream by a martlet to the planet Mercury, where he watches events unfold — and then vanishes from the narrative within a few chapters, leaving the reader alone in the world. Despite their names, the peoples of Mercury — Demons, Witches, Goblins, Imps, Pixies — are all human. When the ambassador of Gorice XI demands that Demonland submit, the quarrel is settled in a wrestling match; Goldry kills the king, but Gorice returns in a new body as the sorcerer Gorice XII and, through sorcery, snatches Goldry away to enchanted captivity on the mountain of Zora Rach. Lord Juss spends years in the attempt to free his brother, climbing the terrible peaks of Koshtra Pivrarcha and Koshtra Belorn, fighting a manticore-like mantichora, and seeking a hippogriff's egg that alone can carry a rider to Zora Rach. The war that follows is fought on land and sea, with betrayals by the subtle Lord Gro and the ambitious Corund and Corinius, until Carcë falls and Gorice is destroyed. Victorious and suddenly purposeless, the lords of Demonland grieve that they have no worthy enemies left. The gods grant their wish, and the story rewinds to the day Gorice's ambassador first arrived. ## Reception & impact The novel won admirers among writers more than among the public. Tolkien, who knew Eddison — an occasional guest of [the Inklings](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/the-inklings/) — wrote in a 1957 letter that he read Eddison's works "with great enjoyment for their sheer literary merit", but disliked his characters (always excepting Lord Gro), his "evil and indeed silly 'philosophy'", and his "slipshod and often inept" nomenclature. [C. S. Lewis](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-s-lewis/) praised Eddison warmly, and the book was one of two he asked for when he went into a nursing home in his last year. The book's widest readership came after Tolkien's. In April 1967, riding the success of the authorized paperback of *[The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/)*, [Ballantine Books](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/ballantine-books/) issued *The Worm Ouroboros* in paperback, followed by the Zimiamvian novels. These editions became precursors of the [Ballantine Adult Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/ballantine-adult-fantasy/) series, which later carried its unicorn colophon on reprints. ## Legacy Eddison's direct fingerprints on games are faint — he is not among the authors of [Appendix N](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/appendix-n/) — but the paperback wave his book helped start was the reading of the generation that invented roleplaying games. His Gorice, a sorcerer-king whose power rests on demonic conjuration in a dark fortress, is an early form of the [The Dark Lord](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/dark-lord/); his hippogriff's egg, a rare component needed to reach an otherwise impossible place, is exactly the kind of quest item that drives an adventure. Later writers influenced by the novel include Karl Edward Wagner and Clive Barker. The book's circular ending also has an unexpected modern echo. Heroes who finish the war, find victory hollow, and choose to begin again with everything restored is a shape video games would later formalize as "New Game Plus" — a parallel rather than a lineage, but a reminder of how much of fantasy's appetite for endless adventure Eddison understood a century ago. ## Facts - The book opens with an Englishman, Lessingham, carried in a dream to the planet Mercury — and then quietly abandons him. - Its 'Demons', 'Witches', 'Goblins' and 'Imps' are all human nations; the names are simply names. - To rescue his brother from enchanted captivity on a mountain, Lord Juss must find the egg of a hippogriff. - Tolkien read Eddison 'with great enjoyment for their sheer literary merit' but judged his nomenclature 'slipshod and often inept'. - The ending loops back to the beginning, like the ouroboros serpent eating its own tail. - Eddison, a senior civil servant at the Board of Trade, also translated Egil's Saga from Old Norse (1930). ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worm_Ouroboros) - [Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Adult_Fantasy_series) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.