Examples
Several stories in Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges' short story collection entitled Ficciones are reviews of fictional books; in this case, the fictional book is the basis of the story. As an example of the second use of fictional books, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell includes scholarly footnotes to invented biographies, magical texts and journals to add to the texture and depth of the story. H. P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon might be considered an example of the third usage, since it appears as a recurring motif in several of the Cthulhu Mythos stories. Many (but not all) of the fictional books mentioned in the work of Douglas Adams are of the joke title variety. H. G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come", which purports to be a history textbook published in 2106, includes - just like actual history books - numerous footnotes, some of them referring to actual historical sources but most to fictional ones.
Some books started out as fictional and were then written. Examples include Fly Fishing by the fictitious J.R. Hartley, from an advertisement; I, Libertine, a hoax by Jean Shepherd; and Venus on the Half-Shell by the fictitious Kilgore Trout, originally invented by Kurt Vonnegut, then written and published (attributed to Trout) by Philip José Farmer.
Read more about this topic: List Of Fictional Books, Uses
Famous quotes containing the word examples:
“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people’s attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.”
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“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)