A Journey Beyond Reality: Poetic Prose and Lush Imagery in Tanith Lee’s Night’s Master

Tanith Lee was a “highly decorated writer” (Chappell 1) whose work ranged from science-fiction, through fantasy and children’s literature to contemporary and detective novels. Although she published more than ninety novels and three hundred short stories, her audience has diminished through the years, affecting also the academic interest in her works. The aims of this article are to provide a literary analysis of one of her most famous novels, Night’s Master, and answer the question of why readers describe her prose as “lush” and “poetic”; and also interpret the recurring symbolism and themes of beauty, sexuality and metamorphosis in the work. This article also highlights the similarities between the novel and fairy tales in regard of numeric symbolism and morals.