Books within books...

[Kell]

There seem to be loads of books mentioned in novels and I was wondering how many people could recall from what they'd read.

Obviously, in books l like The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, Jane Austen's novels are continually referenced. However, Austen referenced other novels within her own too! In Northanger Abbey there is a list of Gothic novels that Catherine is entreated to read. They are now, apparently, collectively known as "The Northanger Horrid Novels" as they are all particularly gruesome (at least, they were considered so for the time):

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe
The Italian by Anne Radcliffe
Clermont by Regina Maria Roche
Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons
Mysterious Warnings by Eliza Parsons
Necromancer of the Black Forest by Ludwig Flammenberg
Midnight Bell by Francis Lathom
Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath
Horrid Mysteries by Marquis de Grosse

Possibly the most famous "book within a book" is The Princess Bride by William Goldman, which continually makes reference to an "original" version that Goldman is supposedly translating (the punchline being that it is, in fact, as original novel by Goldman himself).

What others can you guys think of?

[~V~]

in the historian there's a touch of quoting too

[lovesreading06]

the book thief. the wee one reads books.

[JudyB]

Isn't Beswick mentioned in Jane Eyre?

I'm sure there are others but can't recall them at the moment.

[angerball]

The only one I can recall off the top of my head is Watership Down getting a mention in Stephen King's The Stand.

[samgrosser]

I've just read The English Patient and there are lots of books mentioned in it, most memorably, Kipling's Kim, Herodotus' Histories, and The Odyssey. There are others too, but those are the ones that have stuck in my mind.

I think it's called 'intertextuality,' but you'll have to ask someone who's studied more recently (or with more attention) to find out more.

[Kell]

There are also fictional books mentioned within books during the course of the story. For example, throughout the Harry Potter series there are countless magic textbooks mentioned. There are so many mentioned that I'm not going to copy them all over to the thread, but you can see a full list HERE (http://hoggywartyhogwarts.net/books.htm).

[Mbwun_Lily]

"The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield is a book about books. The lead character owns a high end used book store in London.

It's one of the most fantastic reads I've had in quite some time.

[~V~]

"The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield is a book about books. The lead character owns a high end used book store in London.

It's one of the most fantastic reads I've had in quite some time.

i liked the sound of this so have requested it on RISI :mrgreen:

[Gyre]

There is a book of fairy tales mentioned in 'Weaveworld' by Clive Barker but I can not remember the title of the fairy tale book.:D

[Polka Dot Rock]

Isn't Beswick mentioned in Jane Eyre?

I'm sure there are others but can't recall them at the moment.

You're very right Judy! Jenny Uglow wrote a biography about him last year and I remember reading quite a few articles last year. Here's one: Small Wonders (http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,,1921990,00.html), and here's a bit about how Bewick ended up in Jane Eyre:



Bewick never soared to the visionary heights of Blake, but there was terror and loneliness in his art, as well as comedy and observation, and this, too, had a powerful appeal. A copy of A History of British Birds arrived in Haworth parsonage when Charlotte Brontë was 12, and the Brontë children passed the volumes around, waiting for their turn and scribbling dates on the engravings they liked or copied. Emily, who kept two pet geese, copied the whinchat and ring ouzel, and a vignette of an old woman beating off geese. Charlotte, who fed wild birds in winter, drew the tree sparrow that visits humans in hard weather, the cormorant on a rocky shore and the lonely man fishing in the rain.

As a girl, Charlotte longed to become an artist and - perhaps because she was so shortsighted - examined the engravings with her eyes close to the paper, as if she saw something that others were missing. Brought up, as Bewick had been, on country ghost stories, she responded in particular to his eerie scenes of night and demons. When he died in 1828 she wrote a poem, imagining his traveller on the dreary moor and his chill picture of the surf crashing at sea:

There rises some lone rock all wet with surge
And dashing billows glimmering in the light
Of a wan moon, whose silent rays emerge
From clouds that veil their lustre, cold and bright.

Years later she gave this vision to her heroine in Jane Eyre. When we first meet Jane, she is a small girl taking refuge in the window-seat at Gateshead Hall, clutching a copy of Bewick's Birds. With the curtains screening her from the bully who torments her, and the windows behind her shut against the rain, she can escape, at least in her mind: "With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy." Ignoring the text, Jane goes straight to the pictures, to the Arctic seas that are Bewick's "unknowable places", to the solitary churchyard under the crescent moon, the ships becalmed like "marine phantoms", the fiend pinning down the thief's pack.

[Mbwun_Lily]

i liked the sound of this so have requested it on RISI :mrgreen:

You can't go wrong with this book. Setterfield has an amazing command of the English language and the book has a "Dickensian" quality about it.

It's a quiet little gothic mystery, that is very reminiscent of the work of authors like Dickens, the Brontes, and Daphne DuMaurier.

[Polka Dot Rock]

It's a quiet little gothic mystery, that is very reminiscent of the work of authors like Dickens, the Brontes, and Daphne DuMaurier.

Right, that's me sold to that then!! :lol:

[JudyB]

Yes and me - a 'quiet little gothic mystery' sounds just what I like.

PDR: thanks for the info on Bewick - must dig out my OU stuff to see what it says in there - I think there may have been examples of his illustrations.

[wrathofkublakhan]

The only book within a book that I can think of right now is The Diamond Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age

The primary protagonist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist) in the story is Nell, a street urchin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_urchin) who illicitly receives a copy of an interactive book (with the quaint title Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_primer); a Propaedeutic (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/propaedeutic) Enchiridion (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enchiridion) in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#_note-0)) originally intended for an aristocrat child in a Neo-Victorian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Victorian) tribe. The story follows Nell (and, to a lesser degree, two other girls who receive similar books) as she uses the primer to grow into a well-educated and independent woman in spite of her extremely disadvantaged initial circumstances.
The Diamond Age is characterized by two intersecting, almost equally developed story lines: Nell's education through her independent work with the primer, and the social downfall of engineer and designer of the Primer, John Percival Hackworth. The text includes fully narrated educational tales from the primer, set apart through different (sans-serif (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif)) typeface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface), that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. her four toy friends) onto archetypal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype) folk tales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_tales) stored in the primer's database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database). Although The Diamond Age explores the role of technology and personal relationships in child development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development), its deeper and darker themes also probe the relative values and shortcomings in communication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication) between cultures.

[Freewheeling Andy]

If I remember the structure of "At Swim Two Birds", the main character is an author. You get to read parts of his book, in which there is a character who is a storyteller. There are stories within the book within the book. I think even within the tertiary stories, there are anecdotes and things so you end up with an bizarre hierarchy of books, stories and tales. Even more bizarrely, characters from within one tale appear at the next level "up" the hierarchy escaping from the fiction into the reality.

But it's absolutely donkeys years since I read it, so I could be confused.

[FishAndChips]

I think Pilgrims Progress is mentioned in George Eliots The Mill on the Floss

[Mbwun_Lily]

Corrie, the lead female character in the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child book, "Still Life With Crows" is reading a book called "Beyond the Ice Limit" in the book. "The Ice Limit" is the name of a previous Preston/Child book, and is one of their books for which many people would like to see a sequel written.

Many of us are wondering if this wasn't some kind of harbinger of their intent to eventually write that sequel.

[wrathofkublakhan]

Kinda off topic / on topic ... there is a wonderful play by Tom Stoppard called
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead that is (why can't I make my text work right?) a wonderful "play within a play" based on two characters from Hamlet. I've seen the movie and the show, personally I'll take the show - but both are fun and lively, I recommend the experience.

[kitty_kitty]

I ended up buying Mysteries of Udolpho as it was mentioned so many times in Northanger Abbey and it is also in my 1001 books book too

[Kell]

I ended up buying Mysteries of Udolpho as it was mentioned so many times in Northanger Abbey and it is also in my 1001 books book tooYou have it? Wow! It's on my wish list, so I hope to get it shortly myself - again, simply because it was mentioned so many times in NA, which I loved. I might try another few of the Northanger Horrid Books eventually...

[JudyB]

I ended up buying Mysteries of Udolpho as it was mentioned so many times in Northanger Abbey and it is also in my 1001 books book too

My curiosity was aroused when I read Northanger Abbey - was it easy to get hold of?

[samgrosser]

Kinda off topic / on topic ... there is a wonderful play by Tom Stoppard called
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead that is (why can't I make my text work right?) a wonderful "play within a play" based on two characters from Hamlet. I've seen the movie and the show, personally I'll take the show - but both are fun and lively, I recommend the experience.

I've loved Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead since I saw it as a teenager and here's a little story about it you might like.

Many many years ago Tom Stoppard worked with my father as a news reporter in Bristol and I once wondered where Stoppard got the idea to turn Hamlet inside out. My father told me that Stoppard had been a useless reporter because whenever he got sent out on a story he would get completely distracted by some minor detail and write about that instead... Makes sense.

[kitty_kitty]

My curiosity was aroused when I read Northanger Abbey - was it easy to get hold of?

I got it from play.com they have it at Amazon too

[wrathofkublakhan]

I've loved Rosencrantz & Guildernstern are Dead since I saw it as a teenager and here's a little story about it you might like.

Many many years ago Tom Stoppard worked with my father as a news reporter in Bristol and I once wondered where Stoppard got the idea to turn Hamlet inside out. My father told me that Stoppard had been a useless reporter because whenever he got sent out on a story he would get completely distracted by some minor detail and write about that instead... Makes sense.

Indeed I do! That's a great story, thank you for sharing!
Of course, now I get to share it with all my theater friends..... we love a good gossip.

[fireball]

You know there's a very great read from an equally great writer where a book within a book comes to life right before your eyes, in ways you NEVER thought
possible. And if perchance you've never read the "within" a book and you get the chance to, you'll never see that book in the same light again.! :eek2:

First lets begin with the book PROPER,! it's the classic book by the real Grandfather of detective fiction and close friend to an equally great writer Charles Dickens, he is the one and only....Wilkie Collins born in January 1824 the 8th, I think, :confused: anyway he wrote some brilliant books in his time.

But the one thats more to do what THIS threads about is called " The Moonstone" (1868) originally in 3 volumes

It's sometimes subtitled "A love story" well its partly that! but it's anything but though.!

The plot.

:
The Moonstone is a magnificent yellow diamond 'large as a plover's egg'. It was looted at the siege of Seringapatam in southern India in 1799 by Colonel John Herncastle, who seized it from the forehead of a Hindu god. On his return to England he was ostracised by his family and society, and in revenge for a slight he leaves the diamond, said to carry a curse, to his niece Rachel Verinder. Rachel's cousin, Franklin Blake, is to deliver the diamond to the Verinder house near Frizinghall on the Yorkshire coast.


The Moonstone is presented to Rachel at a dinner party for her eighteenth birthday. The guests include Godfrey *Ablewhite, another cousin; Mr Candy, the family doctor; Mr Murthwaite, a celebrated traveller in India; and Drusilla Clack, an interfering evangelist. The party goes badly. Rachel and Franklin Blake have become fond of each other while decorating her sitting room door and Rachel had earlier refused a marriage proposal from Ablewhite. In addition, Blake quarrels with Mr Candy about the competence of doctors. Blake had been followed in London and Murthwaite identifies three Indians seen near the house as high caste Brahmins. Rachel places the diamond in her bedroom cabinet but the next morning it is missing.


The local police superintendent, Seegrave, is a bungling incompetent so Blake calls in the celebrated Sergeant Cuff of the detective police. He rules out the suspicious Indians but realises the importance of smeared paint on Rachel's sitting room door. The smear has been made by an article of dress, whose owner is almost certainly the thief. Rachel behaves inexplicably, obstructing the investigation and refusing to have anything more to do with Franklin Blake. Cuff concludes that she has stolen her own diamond assisted by Rosanna Spearman, a deformed housemaid fascinated by the local quicksand. Rosanna is a reformed thief who is acquainted with a dubious London moneylender, Septimus Luker. She is also in love with Franklin Blake and after acting strangely drowns herself in the Shivering Sand. Cuff is dismissed from the case by Lady Verinder but correctly predicts future developments.


In London, both Ablewhite and Luker are attacked and searched, Luker losing a receipt for a great valuable. Lady Verinder dies of a heart condition and Rachel reluctantly agrees to marry Ablewhite whose father has become her guardian. They move to Brighton where they are visited by Mr Bruff, the family solicitor. The engagement is broken off when he reveals that Ablewhite is in debt and is marrying Rachel for her money.
Blake returns from travels abroad but Rachel refuses to see him. Determined to restore her good opinion, he revisits Yorkshire where Rosanna Spearman's only friend, Limping Lucy, gives him a letter from the dead housemaid. This leads him to the Shivering Sand where Rosanna has hidden his nightgown, smeared with paint, with a confession that she concealed the nightgown and killed herself out of love. The confused Blake returns to London and contrives a meeting with Rachel at Mr Bruff's house in Hampstead. There she tells him that she knows he had financial problems and with her own eyes saw him take the diamond. Her own actions have been to protect his reputation.
Blake meets Mr Candy's assistant, Ezra Jennings, who saved Candy's life from a fever caught after the birthday dinner. Jennings had recorded Candy's delirium which revealed that Candy had secretly given Blake opium to prove his point in their argument. Blake therefore unknowingly 'stole' the diamond under the influence of the drug, in order to keep it safe. Jennings explains to Blake that if he takes opium again under similar conditions he may repeat his actions of the previous year and reveal where he placed the diamond. Blake agrees and the experiment is conducted with Mr Bruff as an observer. Blake takes a substitute gem but fails to reveal the Moonstone's hiding place. Rachel, really in love with him, is also present and has already forgiven him.


Bruff in the meantime has Luker's bank watched. The moneylender is observed passing the diamond to a sailor who is followed to a dockside inn. Later the same night he is murdered. Cuff, brought out of retirement by Blake, discovers that the sailor is Godfrey Ablewhite in disguise. He was the real thief and stole the gem to save himself from financial ruin. He has been killed by the Indians who have now recovered the diamond. In a religious ceremony witnessed in India by Murthwaite, the Brahmins return the diamond to the god of the moon. some 'love' story eh?

Now what, you may well ask, is all that got to do a book within a book.?

QUITE a lot...really, quite.

Now take a look yonder at This book by Daniel Defoe Called : Robinson Crusoe (1719). Which in turn is based on a true story (didn't know that did you.!?) It is based, in fact, upon the experiences of Alexander Selkirk who had run away to sea in 1704 and requested to be left on an uninhabited island to be rescued five years later.

[fireball]

Sadly now appallingly down graded to either to Childerns pantomime or worse Juvenile literature.!!!!! A travesty truly, of a most incredible human endurance ever written. I mean how would you be after for nearly three decades on an Island. And You thought "LOST" was brill, HAH.!

Plot Overview :
Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman from the town of York in the seventeenth century, the youngest son of a merchant of German origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe expresses his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going out to sea, and his father explains that it is better to seek a modest, secure life for oneself. Initially, Robinson is committed to obeying his father, but he eventually succumbs to temptation and embarks on a ship bound for London with a friend. When a storm causes the near deaths of Crusoe and his friend, the friend is dissuaded from sea travel, but Crusoe still goes on to set himself up as merchant on a ship leaving London. This trip is financially successful, and Crusoe plans another, leaving his early profits in the care of a friendly widow. The second voyage does not prove as fortunate: the ship is seized by Moorish pirates, and Crusoe is enslaved to a potentate in the North African town of Sallee. While on a fishing expedition, he and a slave boy break free and sail down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picks them up, buys the slave boy from Crusoe, and takes Crusoe to Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe establishes himself as a plantation owner and soon becomes successful. Eager for slave labor and its economic advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad.

Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition and seeks shelter and food for himself. He returns to the wreck’s remains twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other items. Onshore, he finds goats he can graze for meat and builds himself a shelter. He erects a cross that he inscribes with the date of his arrival, September 1, 1659, and makes a notch every day in order never to lose track of time. He also keeps a journal of his household activities, noting his attempts to make candles, his lucky discovery of sprouting grain, and his construction of a cellar, among other events. In June 1660, he falls ill and hallucinates that an angel visits, warning him to repent. Drinking tobacco-steeped rum, Crusoe experiences a religious illumination and realizes that God has delivered him from his earlier sins. After recovering, Crusoe makes a survey of the area and discovers he is on an island. He finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes, where he builds a shady retreat. Crusoe begins to feel more optimistic about being on the island, describing himself as its “king.” He trains a pet parrot, takes a goat as a pet, and develops skills in basket weaving, bread making, and pottery. He cuts down an enormous cedar tree and builds a huge canoe from its trunk, but he discovers that he cannot move it to the sea. After building a smaller boat, he rows around the island but nearly perishes when swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore, he hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved once again. He spends several years in peace.
One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides it must belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region. Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that the shore has been strewn with human carnage, apparently the remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed. Another one, waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills. Well-armed, Crusoe defeats most of the cannibals onshore. The victim vows total submission to Crusoe in gratitude for his liberation. Crusoe names him Friday, to commemorate the day on which his life was saved, and takes him as his servant.
Finding Friday cheerful and intelligent, Crusoe teaches him some English words and some elementary Christian concepts. Friday, in turn, explains that the cannibals are divided into distinct nations and that they only eat their enemies. Friday also informs Crusoe that the cannibals saved the men from the shipwreck Crusoe witnessed earlier, and that those men, Spaniards, are living nearby. Friday expresses a longing to return to his people, and Crusoe is upset at the prospect of losing Friday. Crusoe then entertains the idea of making contact with the Spaniards, and Friday admits that he would rather die than lose Crusoe. The two build a boat to visit the cannibals’ land together. Before they have a chance to leave, they are surprised by the arrival of twenty-one cannibals in canoes. The cannibals are holding three victims, one of whom is in European dress. Friday and Crusoe kill most of the cannibals and release the European, a Spaniard. Friday is overjoyed to discover that another of the rescued victims is his father. The four men return to Crusoe’s dwelling for food and rest. Crusoe prepares to welcome them into his community permanently. He sends Friday’s father and the Spaniard out in a canoe to explore the nearby land.
Eight days later, the sight of an approaching English ship alarms Friday. Crusoe is suspicious. Friday and Crusoe watch as eleven men take three captives onshore in a boat. Nine of the men explore the land, leaving two to guard the captives. Friday and Crusoe overpower these men and release the captives, one of whom is the captain of the ship, which has been taken in a mutiny. Shouting to the remaining mutineers from different points, Friday and Crusoe confuse and tire the men by making them run from place to place. Eventually they confront the mutineers, telling them that all may escape with their lives except the ringleader. The men surrender. Crusoe and the captain pretend that the island is an imperial territory and that the governor has spared their lives in order to send them all to England to face justice. Keeping five men as hostages, Crusoe sends the other men out to seize the ship. When the ship is brought in, Crusoe nearly faints.
On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship to return to England. There, he finds his family is deceased except for two sisters. His widow friend has kept Crusoe’s money safe, and after traveling to Lisbon, Crusoe learns from the Portuguese captain that his plantations in Brazil have been highly profitable. He arranges to sell his Brazilian lands. Wary of sea travel, Crusoe attempts to return to England by land but is threatened by bad weather and wild animals in northern Spain. Finally arriving back in England, Crusoe receives word that the sale of his plantations has been completed and that he has made a considerable fortune. After donating a portion to the widow and his sisters, Crusoe is restless and considers returning to Brazil, but he is dissuaded by the thought that he would have to become Catholic. He marries, and his wife dies. Crusoe finally departs for the East Indies as a trader in 1694. He revisits his island, finding that the Spaniards are governing it well and that it has become a prosperous colony.

You see In all of the main story of "The Moonstone"
the great Sergeant Cuff somehow but ALWAYS makes equations with Crusoe's plight on THAT island! and you know, God help us, with the MARVEL of Wilkie Collins's writing....He's absolutely (Sergeant Cuff, that is) right.!

First read The former book then the latter, you'll see where the two incredibly coalesce, God! but Wilkie Collins used a stroke of genius.

Never has a book within a book been done better, literally. 'Lost' I hope has lost it's mystery & mystic, it's cr :censored: anyway.

Remember how the hairs (arose on the back of your neck) after all his time alone on the island....suddenly to find a foot print in the sand, and it wasn't his.! AWWWWWW.!!!!!! Still gives gives me goosebumps just thinking of it.!

Treat your self to two great classic reads...you won't be "lost" for long with REAL stunning reads. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y14/steelclaw32/thumb.gif http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y14/steelclaw32/approve.gif

[Kell]

Wow, Fireball - thanks for that! Both books are ones I planned to read anyway, but now I'm positively gagging to get to them! As soon as my book embargo is lifted slightly I'm getting hold of both of these and reading them asap!

[JudyB]

Hi Fireball - nice to see another Wilkie Collins fan on here - I've loved his writing since reading The Woman in White

[fireball]

Kell, Judy, many thanks, Kell you'll have a ball and your spine will be tingled!; Judy the origin of sorts for The Woman in White, began for Wilkie Collins, when he was in a carriage think Victorian version of a bus or taxi,! when he saw a distraught woman outside, of all places, a graveyard!. It was the look on her face and just the way she was. And he just couldn't get her out of his mind, so began another tingling story, and of course, a classic. ;) :D

You know, there's some cures for addiction, thank God there is none for ours.! :readingtwo: Or life just wouldn't be worth living if there were one eh.!? :lol:

[JudyB]

Thanks Fireball - I didn't know that. Do you have a favourite of his?

[fireball]

judy, sorry I don't. There's + & -'s in just about all the writers I follow male and female, rather like asking parents which child of theirs they love most, or worse, prefer.! I'm like that, I look at all my books going on forty-odd years now, as my children.

I get both :irked: and :D at times, at some of my books, I suppose like real life mum and dads with their children, but they, the books always come through in the end, like some children do.

Whether it's an intricate densely plotted, or wonderfully discriptive passages
or people /situations you can relate, or just rattling damn good read; I can honestly say in all my late forty years of reading, I can name only one book I came too close to doing something I've never done before even now, that is throwing away and out of my sight, but sadly not out of my head pity.
And that book is "Perfume:The Story of a Murderer ", the greatest load of horse poo I EVER read, truly really wretched piece that should never seen the light of day, it was so bad they made a film of it : http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/p/Perfume-The-story-Of-A-Murderer/index-2379113.html AND no pun intended, it died a death.

Hope that answes your question somehow. :lol:;) God, I've just re-read all the above, bloody hell talk about long winded.!:D

[Pilgrim]

Sherlock Holmes is always being referred to in mysteries - Poirot for instance. In the The Labors of Hercules he has to refer to classics. And Christie uses a lot of allusions to Shakespeare in the titles and the text.

[Maureen]

Thursday Next's stories are full of other books -and other characters within these books are featured too - ;-)

[Kell]

I'll be starting The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger very shortly and I was just flicking through the pages (I often do that before reading - i just rifle the pages a bit and the odd word or phrase jumps out at me). I noticed that right on the first page, Holden Caulfield mentions a book his brother wrote called The Secret Goldfish, which appears to be a book of short stories (one of which provides the name of the book containing them). He also mentions David Copperfield in the first paragraph. I'm already wondering how many other books will be mentioned...

[wrathofkublakhan]

I've never read Don Quixote but I know the musical, Man of La Mancha is a story within a story -- it takes place in a prison and the story within takes place outdoors and a-tilting at windmills and the lovely Dulcinea.

Also, I may be askew, but I think some of The Bard's plays are "story within a story", I seem to remember Taming of the Shrew opening with this drunk guy who falls asleep and dreams the entire play, then at the end wakes up and decides to go home and tame his wife, which we all know -- he's not got a chance!

AND .. while we are on the subject, consider the following....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_within_a_story

[Janet]

I've just finished Little Women and it contains numerous references to books.

Apart from The Pilgrim's Progress which is the main influence for the book, it also mentions...

The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Yonge
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

... to name but a few

There is a whole chapter devoted to Charles Dickens!

[Sedge]

Stephen King refers to his own book Insomnia in The Dark Tower series and at one point, one of the characters even meets the author and gives him the idea for writing The Dark Tower!

[angerball]

Stephen King refers to his own book Insomnia in The Dark Tower series and at one point, one of the characters even meets the author and gives him the idea for writing The Dark Tower!

Stephen King refers to alot of his books in each other, and I love it when he does that. I get so excited when I recognise a reference! :mrgreen: I believe he mentions The Stand in the Dark Tower series too! :D

[frankie]

I ended up buying Mysteries of Udolpho as it was mentioned so many times in Northanger Abbey and it is also in my 1001 books book too

I ended up buying it too and because of the same reason :) I haven't read it yet though, the old Victorian language is a bit difficult for me right now.

The Monk by Matthew Lewis Gregory was also mentioned in Northanger Abbey and I bought it too at the same time I bought Udolpho.

[Tambo]

I've never read Don Quixote but I know the musical, Man of La Mancha is a story within a story -- it takes place in a prison and the story within takes place outdoors and a-tilting at windmills and the lovely Dulcinea.



There's a great scene in Don Quixote where a couple of Quixote's friends have decided to burn his library that houses the books on Knights Errant (the source of Quixote's madness.)

As they decide which volumes to keep, and which must be burned, the author Servantes uses it as an oppurtunity to slag off a lot of genuine books that were around at the time.

The books Servantes doesn't like get thrown out of the window into a pile to be burned.
The books he does liked are given a reprieve.

The book he really doesn't like get a reprieve and a generous amount of grand praise, in the translation I read there is a footnote explaining the authors sarcasm.

Being the 16th century or whenever, of course I didn't recognise any of the books. Nothing changes though, there are good and bad books around today and you could imagine this scene taking place.
Except that it would take a very brave author indeed to write such a scene when the books being burned or saved are written by his contempories.

[Tambo]

The City of Thieves by David Benioff mentions a fictional book, The Courtyard Hound.

The chap who keeps mentioning continually refers to it as a classic and quotes big chunks of it, explains the story, the characters and their philosophy.
Towards the end of the book we learn that it is not in fact a real classic, it is a novel written by the protaganist himself. He wants to guage people's reaction to it without giving away that he wrote it and opening himself up to ridicule etc.

[nursenblack]

I'm reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and I've seen several references to other novels. The character Bella reads Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and also references a few of Jane Austen's novels and characters.

In Atonement by Ian McEwan the character Robbie often references books like D. H. Lawernce's Lady Chatterley's Lover and some from the 18th century. He even mentions Jane Austen.

[Bellatrix]

Farenheit 451 - set in the 24th century, the authorities consider books to be evil (because they inspire independant thought) so order all books to be burned. A few people fight against this and join a community of book lovers where each one of them has learned a book by heart & can recite it for others & to pass on to future generations. Sounds like my kind of hell - I'm sure it does say which books they have learnt but as I'm not at home can't check, exellent & scary book (did the nazis do something like this?). This could probably go in the Dystopian thread as well.

[KW]

Stephen King refers to alot of his books in each other, and I love it when he does that. I get so excited when I recognise a reference! :mrgreen: I believe he mentions The Stand in the Dark Tower series too! :D
I was once told by a writing teacher that this practice of referring to or mentioning your own work in your book was considered narcisitic and frowned upon in the industry...lol. I think it makes sense, but what do I know? ( Or maybe, what did the teacher know, if SK is doing it!!)

[Michelle]

I think SK can pretty much do what he wants! ;)