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The Cream of the Jest · Chapters

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Chapter companions for The Cream of the Jest by James Branch Cabell.

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  1. Chapter 1

    Dedication

    The author dedicates the book to Louisa Nelson with a Latin epigraph expressing that no old age will separate him from her love.

  2. Chapter 2

    The Cream of the Jest

    The chapter introduces the novel's central conceit: a comedy of evasions, where the protagonist, Felix Kennaston, navigates the blurred boundaries between waking life and a dream world, using art and illusion to escape the limitations of reality.

  3. Chapter 3

    Book First

    The opening chapter introduces the central figure of Ettarre, comparing her to the mythical Phoenix and establishing her as a paragon of grace and beauty, setting the stage for the themes of idealization and the power of storytelling.

  4. Chapter 4

    I: Palliation of the Gambit

    The narrator introduces Felix Kennaston's mysterious transformation from a writer of tolerable verse to the genius behind 'Men Who Loved Alison,' attributing the change to Kennaston's encounter with a sigil. The chapter sets up the story as Kennaston's own explanation, pieced together from notes and social knowledge, beginning with a dream-like opening at Storisende in the world's youth.

  5. Chapter 5

    II: Introduces the Ageless Woman

    Count Emmerick plans a marriage-feast for his sister La Beale Ettarre and Sir Guiron des Rocques. Ettarre, watching from the turrets of Storisende, confides in Horvendile her lingering fear of Maugis d'Aigremont. Horvendile, hopelessly in love with Ettarre, delivers a philosophical discourse on love and illusion, arguing that she embodies an ageless, idealized woman beyond humanity—a figure glimpsed by poets from Homer to Theocritus. He declares his intention to return to his own country, where no woman can be loved because they are all too familiar and lack mystery.

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  1. Chapter 6III: Wherein a Clerk Appraises a Fair Country
  2. Chapter 7Of the Double-Dealer’s Traffic with a Knave
  3. Chapter 8V: How the Double-Dealer Was of Two Minds
  4. Chapter 9VI: Treats of Maugis d’Aigremont’s Pottage
  5. Chapter 10VII: Journey's End: With the Customary Unmasking
  6. Chapter 11Book Second
  7. Chapter 12VIII: Of a Trifle Found in Twilight
  8. Chapter 13IX: Beyond Use and Wont Fares the Road to Storisende
  9. Chapter 14Of Idle Speculations in a Library
  10. Chapter 15XI: How There Was a Light in the Fog
  11. Chapter 16XII: Of Publishing: With an Unlikely Appendix
  12. Chapter 17XIII: Suggesting Themes of Universal Appeal
  13. Chapter 18XIV: Peculiar Conduct of a Personage
  14. Chapter 19XV: Of Vain Regret and Wonder in the Dark
  15. Chapter 20Book Third
  16. Chapter 21XVI: They Come to a High Place
  17. Chapter 22XVII: Of the Sigil and One Use of It
  18. Chapter 23XVIII: Treats of a Prelate and, in Part, of Pigeons
  19. Chapter 24XIX: Local Laws of Nephelococcygia
  20. Chapter 25XX: Of Divers Fleshly Riddles
  21. Chapter 26XXI: In Pursuit of a Whisper
  22. Chapter 27XXII: Of Truisms: Treated Reasonably
  23. Chapter 28Book Fourth
  24. Chapter 29XXIII: Economic Considerations of Piety
  25. Chapter 30Deals with Pen Scratches
  26. Chapter 31XXV: Byproducts of Rational Endeavor
  27. Chapter 32XXVI: “Epper Si Muove”
  28. Chapter 33Evolution of a Vestryman
  29. Chapter 34XXVIII: The Shallowest Sort of Mysticism
  30. Chapter 35Book Fifth
  31. Chapter 36XXIX: Of Poetic Love: Treated with Poetic Inefficiency
  32. Chapter 37XXX: Cross-Purposes in Spacious Times
  33. Chapter 38XXXI: Horvendile to Ettarre: At Whitehall
  34. Chapter 39XXXII: Horvendile to Ettarre: At Vaux-le-Vicomte
  35. Chapter 40Horvendile to Ettarre: In the Conciergerie
  36. Chapter 41Of One Enigma That Threatened to Prove Allegorical
  37. Chapter 42XXXV: Treats of Witches, Mixed Drinks, and the Weather
  38. Chapter 43Book Sixth
  39. Chapter 44Sundry Disclosures of the Press
  40. Chapter 45Considerations Toward Sunset
  41. Chapter 46One Way of Elusion
  42. Chapter 47Past Storisende Fares the Road of Use and Wont
  43. Chapter 48XL: Which Mr. Flaherty Does Not Quite Explain