fantastry

And it may perhaps be added that one of the chief reasons for believing heartily in the last Book is the delectable and unimprovable contrast which La Quinte and her court of intellectual fantastry present to this picture of intellectual materialism.

A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 George Saintsbury 1889

He could, as in _The Caxtons_, be fairly true to ordinary life -- but even then he seemed to feel a necessity of setting off and as it were apologising for the simplicity and veracity by touches -- in fact by _douches_ -- of Sternian fantastry, and by other touches of what was a little later to be called sensationalism.

The English Novel George Saintsbury 1889