Classic Fantasy Books : The Well of the Unicorn by Fletcher Pratt
By ForestSimple
So this is a fresh little series I’m doing where I talk about classic fantasy books that don’t always show up on people’s usual “top reads” list. This one is a copy I’ve had for a while, but I haven’t gotten to it yet—and then I looked up the publication info and was honestly shocked to see it came out even before LOTR. From what I’ve gathered, it’s about Alvar Alvarson getting kicked off his farm because he can’t pay taxes, and then getting wrapped up in way more than he bargained for. An old enchanter, Doctor Meliboe, basically ropes him into delivering a message to a group of conspirators, and it turns into this whole mess involving a plot against the ruling military caste. Then there’s romance/chaos with a girl-soldier named Evadne, and later he ends up leading a pretty desperate rebellion. Sounds like plenty of action and swashbuckly adventure, with lots of colorful characters as he goes from kid to man. Also, it’s by Fletcher Pratt, and it was first published in 1948 under the pseudonym George U. Fletcher. One of my copies is even inscribed by Pratt to his friend Doc Clark with a kind of strange little message, which was a fun surprise. I’m not 100% on every detail, but the setting seems to line up pretty closely with medieval Denmark, and it looks like some of that history shows up again in Pratt’s later book The Third King. Either way, it gets reprinted a bunch and seems like something that’s genuinely worth reading.