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The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate 4A

173. THE DRAGON OF THE ISHTAR GATE 4A - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on a 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears in the book, "THE DRAGON OF THE ISHTAR GATE," by L. Sprague de Camp, published by Donning in 1982.

Although it is a separate drawing, it is the left side of a double page illustration, see item 174 for the right side drawing.

Historical novels like this one, obviously require research into the characters and the time period of concern, and in this case de Camp became interested in King Xerxes of Persia, who reigned from 485 to 465 BC.

The difference between my reading a purely fictional adventure story and reading an historical adventure is that I expect the "history" in the latter to be true to the real characters and the time period. I expect to learn some "history" even though I might take the "adventure" with a grain of salt, as they say.

While reading de Camp's historical novels I always felt confident that I was getting reasonably true pictures of the people, the times and the places he wrote about.
The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate 4A

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