Born in 1878 to the second oldest title in the Irish peerage, Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, was a writer and dramatist, mostly of fantasy. He published more than 80 books as Lord Dunsany, including hundreds of short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays. Educated at Cheam, Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he served in the Boer War and both World Wars, moving in the 1930s from County Meath to Shoreham in Kent. Dunsany worked with W.B. Yeats, and was a significant influence on such writers as H. P. Lovecraft, J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov.

In addition to his writing, Lord Dunsany was an influential campaigner for the scouting movement, the British Legion, and for animal rights. He set chess puzzles for The Times, was a pioneering writer of radio drama and appeared in early television programmes including the BBC¿s The Brains Trust. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Geographical Society, Dunsany received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in 1957 of appendicitis, aged 79.