From the island of Hermaphrodite, where May is celebrated every month, to the kingdom of Aleophane, where criminals are offered a choice of entering the church or becoming journalists, to the quaint town of Stepford, whose housewives behave very much like robots (which, in fact they are): This is a guide to more than 1,200 cities, islands, countries, and continents invented by writers and storytellers from Homer’s day to our own.
Shangri-La and Atlantis are here, as are More’s Utopia, Swift’s Brobdingnag, Tolkien’s Middle-earth, and the Beatles’ Pepperland – their geography, history, and very unusual inhabitants described in fascinating detail. Here are worlds created to satisfy every desire for escape or perfection: dream kingdoms and vampire cities; intellectual curiosities and hilarious absurdities; architectural, musical, and feminist utopias; cities of impeccable virtue and unmitigated vice; cities that hang in the air or change at a glance.
With over 200 original illustrations and maps, this remarkable book catalogs the imaginary worlds of a vast range of writers (and others): Lewis Carroll, Carl Sandburg, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Richard Wagner, L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, Rabelais, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Gilbert and Sullivan, Jorge Luis Borges, and Graham Greene. A browser’s delight and first class reference tool that manages to be delightful and entertaining throughout, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places will bring back memories of favorite realms and lure you to lands unknown.