American writer James Branch Cabell carved out a literary niche of his own with a body of work that combines fantasy, humor, and allegory. The novel Gallantry succeeds marvelously on all three levels. In terms of plot, it's a rollicking action-adventure quest story that fans of fiction set in the medieval era will relish. Thematically, it's a clever send-up of the very notion of gallantry and all of the harm wrought by this complex social code.