The Knight and Knave of Swords
core collection 1988 Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Record
| First published | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | collection |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.78 (2,188 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 303 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780688085308 |
| Internal chronology | 7 |
Synopsis
The final volume in Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser saga, The Knight and Knave of Swords finds the two adventurers settled on Rime Isle alongside their wives, having largely traded their old life of theft and swordplay for that of peaceful traders. Its four stories explore how uneasily the pair adjust to this quieter existence after decades of wandering, even as old curses and lingering magical afflictions continue to find them despite their attempts to leave adventure behind. The collection closes out the saga by weighing what, if anything, two aging rogues owe to the life they built together, testing whether Fafhrd and the Mouser can truly settle down or whether trouble will always seek them out.
Where it sits
- Universe: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
- Series: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser core; position 7 of 7 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Fritz Leiber
Notes
- From the series record (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser): 7 volumes assembled by Leiber himself from ~35-40 short stories/novellas written 1939-1988 (originally scattered across pulp magazines over five decades) into a fixed internal reading order; collection-publication order does not match this internal order (Swords and Deviltry, internally 1st, was published in 1970, after Swords in the Mist/Against Wizardry/The Swords of Lankhmar, all 1968). Classified Core Canon per the same collection-as-Core exception established for The Witcher's foundational short-story collections: for this universe, the collections ARE the primary/definitive reading unit, not supplementary material.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: position 7 of 7: previous Swords and Ice Magic (1977)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_and_Knave_of_Swords
← Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.