Fictive Non-Fiction
Fictive Non-Fiction
Fictional non-fiction almost invariably appears in a story to help characterize its reader, or occasionally its writer. It is sometimes used as a plot device as well.
The Decretals of the University of Paris on the Liberty of Décolletage in Young Women
Decretum Universitatis Parisiensis super gorgiasitate muliercularum ad placitum
The Masters of the Sorbonne
Paris: Henri Estienne, 1514.
First mentioned in Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel.
“Ah, Monsieur Rabelais,” said a New Yorker cartoon, “there’s just no word to describe that earthy humor of yours.” Lacking such a word, the Doctors of the Sorbonne were ill-equipped to confront the fullness of the problems staring them in the face. Although the investigation exposed matters to a discussion of the inadvisability of tight restrictions, the masters finally concluded that considerable further exploratory work remained to be accomplished. Heavily extra-illustrated. Vive la France.
On Stuffing and Elucidating Artifices
De Fartandi et Illustrandi Fallaciis
DIDIUS
York: Ann Ward, 1752.
First mentioned in Laurence Stern’s Tristram Shandy.
A surprisingly salient and practical book of philosophy, concerned chiefly with the exposure of frauds and illogical reasoning. The book would put one in mind of Harry Frankfurt’s excellent little volume On Bullshit and his contention that such fallacious discourse is even more dangerous than lying.
One suspects Sterne of enjoying the resonance of its Latin Title, as it must have sounded somewhat louche to those of his readers unacquainted with that language.
On the Usefulness of Long Codpieces
De la commodité des longues braguettes
PANURGE fl. 1530.
Paris: Yolande Bonhomme, 1530.
First mention in Rabelais’s Gargantua.
Folio, velum. Eight illustrations, one chart, and two codpieces tipped in.
Toni Morrison famously said that if you want to read a book, and you can’t find such a book, then you must write it. Panurge, finding himself caught short, needed this book badly but couldn’t find it, even at the great library of the Abbey of St. Victor, and so, par die, he sat his great self down and wrote it.
The Key to All Mythologies
The Rev. EDWARD CASAUBON
London: Hatchard, 1832.
Mentioned in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.
This work is unusual in that it is both unfinished and fictive. A massive and astonishingly boring book in which the author attempts to resolve all known world mythologies in terms of his understanding of the Christian kerygma. The book was edited by, and not credited to, his wife, Dorothea Brooke (Casaubon). A distressing book in every way.
A First Encyclopaedia of Tlön, Vol XI, Hlaer to Jangr
Many authors
n.l.: n.p., n.d.
First mentioned in Borges’ Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
The encyclopedia describes a world of Berkeleyan idealism, a society whose classical culture is composed chiefly of the discipline of psychology, to which all others are suborned. Tlön was created by a mysterious organization of intellectuals known as Orbis Tertius, who have collectively written out its defining encyclopedia (rather like the work on the Septuagint). Contact with Tlön continues the gradual process of reforming our entire world into itself.
Deadly Vestments: A History of Inept Military Couture
ANTONIA FREMONT
New York: Macmillan, 1982.
Mentioned by Margaret Atwood in The Robber Bride.
Professor Fremont’s area of study is war. Her book concerns the role of clothing, especially badly designed clothing, in getting men killed on the battlefield. It can be anything from the red coats of the Redcoats to the trouser fly buttons of the common soldier. The time required to fumble the fly open in the heat of battle has done in more than a few blokes. It does not, she notes, take a sniper long to aim.
Bell-Bottoms and Leggings
US Navy bell-bottom fall-front trousers with the required thirteen buttons. Traditional Army leggings (puttees) with awkward lacing.
Thoughts on the Prevention of the Diseases most usual among Seamen.
STEPHEN MATURIN [Esteban Maturin y Domanova (c. 1770-1845)]
Dublin: Zachariah Jackson, for W. Gilbert, 1805.
First referenced in Patrick O’Brian’s Desolation Island.
Dr. Stephen Maturin, physician to the Duke of Clarence, was incongruously a ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy, as well as a classicist and a naturalist, a secret agent, and a member of the Royal Society. His groundbreaking work on sailors’ diseases brought practical changes to the treatment of the British tar.
Original boards with metal furniture. Spine replaced with sailcloth in 1840s. Severe staining.
Provenance: descendants of the loblolly boy of HMS Reliant.
Skull
Found in the same box as the book, with oval brass tag labeled “Killick,” curiously the same name as that of Jack Aubrey’s recalcitrant steward. Doubtless a coincidence.
The Architecture of Country Houses
JOHN DRINKWATER
Edgewood: Privately Printed, 1902.
First mentioned in John Crowley’s Little, Big.
John Drinkwater explores the relationship between house architecture and the realm of Faërie. The house he builds for his wife has many different facades, each serving as a customer model. Thus the house’s interior is architected in surprising ways, clearly transgressing between worlds. The liminal nature of their home reflects the tale itself.
This copy of the sixth and final edition, otherwise pristine, had several old cards from the Alliette Tarot laid in.
Garden for Gamesmen or When to Be Fond of Flowers
STEPHEN POTTER
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976.
First mentioned in Potter’s Gamesmanship.
Being an account of the studies of the Lifemanship and the Lifewomanship of the Garden and the Gardening Life.
Includes:
- By the Garden Balk
- The Uses of Harrowing
- The Geranium Gambit
- Trowel-upmanship
- Winning the Winter Garden
- The Petunia Ploy
- Freezing the Flower Show
Manual for the Perfect Woodstove Installer
Manuel du Parfait Fumiste
RODOLPHE MONETTI, ed.
First mentioned in Henri Murger’s Scène de la vie bohème.
This is the book that Rodolfo [in La Bohème] has promised to edit for his uncle’s business in return for enough money to live on while working on the book, plus one hundred crowns on completion, with an advance of fifty francs. The chapters on “Vents” and on “Pipes” were thought to be especially poetic, but Uncle Monetti still hoped to apply for letters patent for his project, which was, unsurprisingly, never delivered.
Model Stove
Model woodstove, pewter. (ap. 4”).
Used as a sales sample when seeking commissions for a woodstove from the Monetti company.
...e penso a quel poltrone d’un vecchio caminetto ingannatore che vive in ozio come un gran signor!
La Bohème – Act 1
Astrology Applied to Horse-racing
ANONYMOUS
Doncaster: Town Moor, 1928.
Mentioned in George Orwell’s Coming Up for Air.
This 1928 booklet, apparently published by a race-course, attempted to prove that the order of finish in a race can be determined by calculating the influence of the planets on the colors of the jockey’s silks, typically understood as:
- Aries: Red
- Taurus: Green
- Gemini: Yellow
- Cancer: Silver
- Leo: Gold
- Virgo: Brown
- Libra: Pink
- Scorpio: Black
- Sagittarius: Purple
- Capricorn: Gray
- Aquarius: Blue
- Pisces: Lt. Green
On the Care of the Pig
AUGUSTUS WHIFFLE
London: T. Edgarton, 1814.
First mentioned in P.G. Wodehouse’s The Crime Wave at Blandings.
Whiffle’s fine work on the care of the pig has been a standard work for so many years that it has become an institution. In addition to the universally valued advice on porcine nutrition, housing, and medication, this book has famously provided a soothing and therapeutic influence on its rural readers. Indeed, it is sometimes questioned whether the book has been of greater benefit to the livestock or to the farmer.