Fritz Leiber - Ill Met in Lankhmar

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Fritz Leiber - Ill Met in Lankhmar (Borealis/ White Wolf Publishing, 1995, hc, 337 pages)

Cover: Mike Mignola

Contents:

Michael Moorcock – Introduction

Swords and Deviltry:
Author's Foreword (1973)
Introduction to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (1977)
The Gray Mouser: 1 (1959) poem
The Gray Mouser: 2 (1959) poem
Induction (1957)
The Snow Women (1970)
The Unholy Grail (1962)

Ill Met in Lankhmar (1970)

Swords Against Death:
Author's Foreword (1969)
The Circle Curse (1970)
The Jewels in the Forest (1939)
Thieves' House (1943)
The Bleak Shore (1940)
The Howling Tower (1941)
The Sunken Land (1942)
The Seven Black Priests (1953)
Claws from the Night (1951)
The Price of Pain-Ease (1970)
Bazaar of the Bizarre (1963)

This is a hardcover collection of the first two books of the Swords series. Sword against Death contains arguably some of the best stories of the companions. Swords and Deviltry is maybe not the best start for beginners. The first two stories are kind of origin stories of our heroes, and Snow Woman, the  Fafhrd story, is rather tedious and too long. As the stories were not written in chronological sequence - just like Howard - , it doesn't matter much if one skips the first two and begins with Ill Met in Lankhmar, where our heroes meet.

As usual with White Wolf this is a well done edition with the typical moody Mignola illustrations, original forewords and introductions, and introductions to the stories: The Circle Curse: How Life is an Eternal Gamble with Death. What heroes do when they lose their first and forever most-beloved girls - in this instance, the delicate Ivrian and staunch Vlana. Of a great wandering of the World of Nehwon and of the first encounters of those formidable swordsmen, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, with those most formidable wizards, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes.

White Wolf published the whole saga in three omnibus editions and one additionally volume, both in hardcover and paperback.