HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The…
Loading...

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic (original 1980; edition 2000)

by Alberto Manguel, Gianni Guadalupi, Graham Greenfield (Illustrator), James Cook (Contributor)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
390664,632 (4.03)48
An expanded edition of a classic resource of fantastic literature serves as a guide to the imaginary realms, including Atlantis, Tolkiens' Middle Earth, and Oz, touring more than 1,200 lands.
Member:mmarciel
Title:The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic
Authors:Alberto Manguel
Other authors:Gianni Guadalupi, Graham Greenfield (Illustrator), James Cook (Contributor)
Info:Harcourt (2000), Edition: Exp Upd, Paperback, 804 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places {original edition} by Alberto Manguel (1980)

  1. 40
    Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were: Creatures, Places, and People by Michael F. Page (ryvre)
  2. 10
    Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (VanishedOne)
    VanishedOne: One is systematic and compendious, the other flows freely from one impression to another, but both flit between windows onto imaginary vistas.
  3. 00
    Utopian Thought in the Western World by Frank E. Manuel (Anonymous user)
None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 48 mentions

English (3)  French (2)  Spanish (1)  All languages (6)
Showing 3 of 3
I fell upon this book when it was first published like a punter attacking an ice-cream during the interval in an over-hot theatre. Just the title had me drooling, and once inside the book I was in seventh heaven. First of all it took places described in a range of literary works as literally true by giving each a Baedeker-style travel guide entry. Then, like any good Baedeker it provided maps and charts giving visual aids to familiar and unfamiliar locations. There have been at least two revised editions since 1980 but this was the first attempt to give an overview of dystopias, utopias, fantasy worlds and comic geographies from different cultures, languages and centuries. The mock-seriousness is sometimes leavened with equally tongue-in-cheek humour though I found that at times the terseness of some entries could be wearing.

Just a few examples of entries, almost at random, may give you a flavour. Bluebeard’s Castle, for example is described as “somewhere in France; the exact location remains unknown. The castle is famed for its many riches and fine furniture, tapestries and full-length mirrors with frames of gold. Travellers – in particular female ones – should proceed with caution…” Some places are in distant lands, such as King Solomon’s Mines, “discovered by Allan Quatermain’s expedition to Kukuanaland, Africa, in 1884″, or Shangri-La, which can “only be reached on foot and visitors are infrequent.” In contrast Ruritania is “a European kingdom reached by train from Dresden” while Wonderland is “a kingdom under England, inhabited by a pack of cards and a few other creatures.”

Here you can find entries for Atlantis and Oz, Camelot and Treasure Island, Middle Earth and Erewhon, Arkham and Hyperborea, Lilliput and Gormenghast, plus a plethora of more obscure places culled from even more obscure titles. Graham Greenfield’s wonderful line drawings have an antique quality about them which only adds to the sense of strangeness and wonder, while the maps and charts by James Cook are a joy to peruse and explore. Some maps from 1980 needed revision (Narnia, for example, had some crucial omissions and misplacements), but their consistent olde-worlde look (with hachures rather than contour lines, for instance, and Renaissance-style typeface) is charming and lends character to the whole presentation.

In addition to the alphabetical listing of places, the authors include an index of authors and titles to help you cross reference. For example, if you can’t remember some of the cities visited by Marco Polo in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities they are handily included here. Which only helps to underscore that The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is a treasure chest to dip into again and again.

http://wp.me/s2oNj1-places ( )
5 vote ed.pendragon | Jul 18, 2010 |
subtitle: à l'usage du voyageur intrépide en maints lieux imaginaires de la littérature universelle
Fantastic classification of all the imaginary places in literature from Abaton to Zuy, with maps and illustrations ( )
  overthemoon | Aug 6, 2006 |
Of interest to me: both authors have translated Jorge Luis Borges.
1 vote | MarieTea | Apr 6, 2012 |
Showing 3 of 3
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors (85 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Manguel, Albertoprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Guadalupi, Giannimain authorall editionsconfirmed
Cook, Jamesmaps and chartssecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Clifton-Dey, RichardCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Greenfield, GrahamIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pennington, MarkPhotographersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Webb, WilliamCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
Dedication
For Alessia, Alice Emily, Giulia, Rachel Claire, and Rupert Tobias
First words
Foreword: In the winter of 1977 Gianni Guadalupi, with whom I had collected an anthology of true and false miracles for a Parmesan publisher, suggested that we prepare a short Baedecker or traveller's guide to some of the places of literature - he was thinking at the time of a guided tour of Paul Feval's vampire city, Selene.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC
An expanded edition of a classic resource of fantastic literature serves as a guide to the imaginary realms, including Atlantis, Tolkiens' Middle Earth, and Oz, touring more than 1,200 lands.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary
Atlantis, Hogwarts,
Narnia, Oz, Shangri-La:
Utopias all!
(ed.pendragon)

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.03)
0.5 1
1
1.5
2 1
2.5 1
3 3
3.5 3
4 16
4.5 1
5 12

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,186,359 books! | Top bar: Always visible