Fictive Fantasy
Fictive Fantasy
Books that appear in fantasy are generally significant (and often magical) elements of the plot, though very occasionally they may occur simply as atmosphere.
The History and Practice of English Magic
JONATHAN STRANGE
London: John Murray, 1816.
First mentioned in Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell.
Very few copies of this valuable book survived Gilbert Norrell’s single-minded effort, extending even to the use of magic, completely to suppress its publication.
This copy has a prize binding with the crest of Eggar’s School (1640) in Alton, Hampshire. The prize was awarded for laboratory work in advanced magic to a fourth form student named Geoffrey d’Arcy.
The World in the Walls (Fillory #1)
CHRISTOPHER PLOVER
New York: Macmillan, 1953.
First mention in Lev Grossman’s The Magicians.
The initial entry of the Fillory and Further books, in which Martin Chatwin first enters the grandfather clock and crosses over into the magical land of Fillory. This book is only partly fiction, as the series is based on the Chatwin children’s real adventures as they related them to Christopher Plover. The story of Plover’s mistreatment of Martin Chatwin became a dreadful scandal. The books are commonly described as “Narnia with sex and violence.”
Fungoids
ENOCH SOAMES
London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane, 1894.
First mentioned in Max Beerbohm’s Seven Men.
Fungoids is a book of unfortunate poems by an unfortunate poet. Soames was frustrated by the lack of response to his books and sold his soul to the devil to travel one hundred years into the future, to see how posterity would remember him. Returning, he was distressed to relate that he was only to be remembered as a character in a Beerbohm story about a poet who sold his soul to the devil.
The King in Yellow
ANONYMOUS
New York: Samuel French, 1930.
Mentioned by Robert Chambers in four of the short stories in the eponymous collection.
The King in Yellow is a forbidden play, a decadent theater piece that cannot be enacted, or even read, without inducing madness in the reader. It is the second act (of two) that causes insanity. The first is described as banal and innocent, but even the sight of the initial page of the second act is sufficient to draw the victim into the depths of madness.
The Mad Trist
Sir LAUNCELOT CANNING, Kt.
London: Longman, 1835.
First mentioned in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
The medieval romance that precipitates the fall of the House of Usher. In Poe’s story, the narrator reads the book The Mad Trist to Sir Roderick as part of a futile attempt to calm the mad evening’s hysteria. As he reads, he hears frightening noises that correspond to the descriptions he is reading. The prematurely buried Madeline bursts into the room, attacking Roderick, and in the ensuing chaos, the house collapses around them.
The Murder of Gonzago
SHACKERLY KENSINGTON
London: “By F.K. for Y.W. & F.E.,”, 1601.
First mentioned in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
“A Tragedy Acted by Her MAJESTIES Servants at The COCK-PIT.” The play serves Hamlet as the “mousetrap,” allowing him to ensure that the king whom he intends to kill is actually the guilty party. This play’s the thing, wherein to catch the conscience of the King.
This play’s the thing, wherein to catch the conscience of the King.
Matter of the Dragons
Masters of Roke
Student’s manuscript, copied from peciae.
Mentioned in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea.
The Roke standard text on the literature and the history of the Dragons, including their own legends and traditions. It was written jointly by the faculty members for a symposium held at the College. Believed to have been initiated during a sabbatical research project by the Master Summoner, the Matter of the Dragons contained all that was known of the early days of dragon-kind outside of their own records, which they do not share.
The Day Labourer of the Feuillantine Nuns
Le Journalier des Feuillantines
ANONYMOUS
Paris: Les Éditions de la Nouvelle France, 1880.
First mentioned in l’Abbé du Prat’s Vénus dans le Cloître ou La Religieuse en chemise.
The story of a day labourer and his strenuous exertions at the convent of the Feuillantine nuns in the rue St.-Honoré. The regime of the nuns was extremely ascetic: they ate only barley bread, herbs, and oatmeal, knelt at meals instead of sitting at table, and slept on bare planks, with a stone for a pillow. It is no great wonder that they sought out new forms of recreation where they could find it.
The Book of Sand
El libro de arena
ANONYMOUS
Bombay(?): n.p., n.d.
First mentioned in the eponymous collection by Jorge Luis Borges.
A book composed in an unknown language and believed to be infinite in length. As it is examined, new pages appear to grow out of the front and back covers. Like sand, it is thought to have neither beginning nor end. The cloth cover is stamped “Holy Writ” and “Bombay.”
The Secret of Secrets
DUBAN THE SAGE – translated by Sir Richard F. Burton
London: Privately Printed, 1886.
First mentioned in the Alf Laylah wa Laylah (1001 Nights).
A sage was condemned by the King but begged before his death to present him with a wondrous book, The Secret of Secrets, with the promise that if the King cut off the Sage’s head and then read from the book, the head would answer any question. Although all happened as the Sage foretold, the King was poisoned by licking his fingers as he read and died with the Sage he had unfairly condemned.
Nymphs and their Ways
ANONYMOUS
Paris: Vincent & Fils, 1987.
First mentioned in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
A charming and quite surprising set of tales in verse, relating Arcadian legends from an anonymous French Renaissance manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Frederick Marchmont’s delightful translations each face a photo-reproduction of the French original.
Necronomicon
Νεκρονοµικον
كتاب الموتى
ABDUL AL-HAZRED
In Vinegia: Appresso Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari et Fratelli, 1541.
First mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Hound.”
The most notorious of the Levantine grimoires. Legend claims that its use results in a horrible death at the hands of invisible monsters. These days of course we find such fears quaint, but for fifty years the book has been kept sealed in this Wells Fargo strongbox.
The Greek edition, John Dee’s copy. It has been on permanent loan to the Byers collection ever since the Crickle accident in the autumn of 1968.
The Lady Who Loved Lightning
CLARE QUILTY with VIVIAN DARKBLOOM
New York: Spelvin Bros., 1941.
First mentioned in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.
Clare Quilty, the author of this dark farce and well-known writer of plays for children, was alledgedly murdered by his colleague Humbert Humbert, the unreliable narrator of the book of origin.
In consequence, Quilty may not actually exist. Should that be the case, this would be the unique instance of an imaginary book being written by a character who does not exist even in his book of origin and who is thus doubly imaginary.
Memories
DEATH
n.l.: unpublished manuscript, n.n.
First mentioned in Sir Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time.
Bound in night.
In Pratchett’s Discworld novels, the character of Death is a quite amiable, if somewhat emaciated, old gaffer, given to an understandable irony, who takes a genuine interest in the vagaries of human affairs and tries to make the end of life play out in as straightforward a manner as possible. His pale horse is named “Binky.”
Death’s Memories are bound in a deep Agatean winter’s night.
The Wild Book
ANONYMOUS
n.l.: n.p., n.d. (never successfully examined)
First noticed in the eponymous novel by Juan Villoro.
The Wild Book is a book willing to be read only by one reader and resisting all attempts on the part of anyone else. It violently changes its location in the library whenever someone attempts to lay hands on it. It is said to be bound in untreated, scratchy white fabric. Neither its subject nor any significant bibliographic information is known.
Please do not alarm the Wild Book.