News
- 11/25/99 The Library is opened.
- 12/18/99 100 books added. New authors include John Bellairs, Jorge Luis Borges, Barry Malzberg, Flann O'Brien, Jonathan Swift, and J. R. R. Tolkien.
- 2/13/00 Over 200 books added. New authors include Francois Rabelais, J. K. Rowling, and Frank Herbert. The catalog has been redesigned to be easier to browse. The Invisible Library welcomes Miss Eells as an associate librarian.
- 4/28/00 New additions include Anthony Powell, Joyce Carol Oates, Georges Perec, Umberto Eco, Milorad Pavic,and of course, more Terry Pratchett.
- 6/30/00 Over 100 new books. Authors include Douglas Adams, James Branch Cabell, Dorothy L. Sayers, and P. G. Wodehouse. Thanks to everyone who has submitted titles!
- 7/30/00 A small update. A new catagory "Oddities" has been added to the catalog, which is a catch-all for books that have a noteworthy or non-fictional element.
- 8/15/00 Added over 100 books, bringing the library's collection to over 1000. Thanks to everyone who has contributed! Authors include J. K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, and Mark Z. Danielewski.
- 11/25/00 The Invisible Library is one year old. Thanks again to everyone who has contibuted, it would be much less interesting without you.
- 12/10/00 The Invisible Library moves to www.invisiblelibrary.com .
- 3/7/01 Added the Fortsas Catalog as a special section to the main catalog. Added essays by Blumenthal, Beerbohm, Carpenter, and Matthews in the Reference section.
- 6/6/01 Long overdue update of the catalog, over 400 new books added. Many thanks to everyone who sent contributions and suggestions. The Invisible Library welcomes Deb Warner as our new Research Consultant.
- 6/8/01 Update updated. Re-did the catalog pages using "Table2HTML" (available free from www.downloads.com). Pages are now one-tenth the size as HTML pages generated by Microsoft Excel, and one-fifth the size of ones made with MSWord. Load times are corespondingly faster, and should be easier to view in non-Explorer browsers.
- 9/17/01 Site is back up after a two week absence, thanks to Network Solutions' inability to type in a string of numbers correctly. During the vacation, I created www.fuddlefog.com, so see what you think.
- 11/26/01 Large update of the catalogue. Over 1000 books added (bringing the total to just over 2500). New authors include Gilbert Sorrentino, Rex Stout, Gene Wolfe, Multatuli, Jack Vance, Laurence Sterne, and many others.
- 4/2/02 Site back up after being absent for over a month. The server had to be moved, and re-connecting to the net turned out to be a bureaucratic mess. Everything should be back and available. Thanks for your patience.
- 6/26/02 Library Catalog updated, with almost 400 new titles added and many corrections to existing entries. New titles by Aldous Huxley, Richard Cowper, Anthony Powell, Peter Greenaway, and many others.
Most Wanted
The following book entries are incomplete. If you have the full information, please let me know and I'll add them to the catalog.
- More information on books referenced in "Books Within Books" (from "And Even Now") by Max Beerbohm
- Books in The Courtier's Library by John Donne
- Salman Rushdie, particularly The Watergate Affair from The Ground Beneath Her Feet
- Books found in P. G. Wodehouse's stories
- Likely suspects: Agatha Christie, E. F. Benson, David Foster Wallace, Milan Kundera, Paul Di Filippo, and Lemony Snicket
Correspondence
If you have suggestions, comments, corrections, or additions for the catalog, please mail Brian Quinette at . If you're sending a catalog entry, please include as much information as you can, including what name you want used for the finder's credit. General suggestions for likely sources are gratefully accepted as well.
Reference Shelf
The following books have been helpful with researching and compiling the catalog, or are interesting reading.
- Imaginary Books and Libraries by John Webster Spargo.
- Imaginary Books and Phantom Libraries by Walter Hart Blumrnthal. Click here to read.
- And Even Now by Max Beerbohm (The essay "Books Within Books"). Click here to read.
- Some Libraries We Have Not Visited by Edwin H. Carpenter Jr. Click here to read.
- Recreations of an Anthologist (The essay "Unwritten Books") by Brander Matthews. Click here to read.
- Bibliotheca Abscondita by Sir Thomas Browne Click here to read.
- The Catalog of Lost Books by Tad Tuleja. 100 made-up books (and their histories) so that you can cite the most obscure references at parties.
- Dictionary of Imaginary Places by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi.
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant.
- The Discworld Companion by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs. Information from this book is marked as Discworld.
- A Cthulhu Mythos by Chris Jarocha-Ernst and Encyclopedia Cthulhiana by Daniel Harms. Entries from these books are marked Cthulhu.
- Ex Libris Miskatonici, A Catalogue of Selected Items from the Special Collections in the Miskatonic University Library by Joan C. Stanley.
- The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes by Vincent Starett. Entries are marked as PrivLife.
- The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth by Robert Foster. Information marked as CGME.
- Widmowa Biblioteka by Pawel Dunin-Wasowicz. This book deserves a special mention, since it does what the Invisible Library does (list books within books), is very well researched (it is 279 pages long), has commentary, and did it first. Unfortunately for English readers, it is in Polish. However, author names and English titles are preserved, so it's a valuable research tool. Many thanks to Mr. Dunin-Wasowicz for sending me a copy. For people interested in purchasing a copy, here's more information: the publisher is Swiat Ksiazkai, and the ISBN is 83-86735-31-7. You might try contacting Polimex Bookstore, who specialize in importing books from Poland.
Other Sites
- The Library of the Sphinx A wide range of writings about invisible books, with the history of several volumes pursued in depth.
- The Libyrinth A wonderful literary resource for many of the authors found here.
- The Crimson Hexagon A section of the Libyrith, it reconstructs the books-within-books of Jorge Luis Borges.
- David's Stephen King Page A tremendous amount of information about all things King.
- Stephen-King net An encyclopedia of Stephen King's books, with entries for characters, places, themes, and cross references. Note - all entires for Stephen King come from this site or from David's Stephen King Page, and are credited as Kings.
- Marek Vit's Kurt Vonnegut's Corner Lots of information about Kilgore Trout.
- John Bellairs Walk All you need about John Bellairs.
- Chaosium Publishers of Clark Ashton Smith, Lin Carter, and other authors adding to the Lovecraft mythos.
- Reader's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos Lots of information about the Lovecraft mythos plus many links.
- The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page A detailed history of The Necronomicon, both in fiction and in real life.
- Unofficial John Irving Page Lots of information about John Irving.
- Terry Pratchett and The Discworld Terry Pratchett fan page with lots of information about the author.
- Discworld Monthly A monthly newsletter and much, much more about all thing Pratchett.
- The L-Space Web Pratchett raised to the power of L. All kinds of things, including hard to find stories.
- Brian Lumley Official Site The official site for all things Lumley.
- Sherlockian.net A very good site for information on Sherlock Holmes.
- Unchronicled Cases A list of all the unpublished cases of Sherlock Holmes.
- Harriet D. Vane Biography Find out about Dorothy L. Sayer's character, and read a reconstruction of the novel Death Twixt Wind and Water.
- Italo Calvino A very complete site dedicated to Italo Calvino.
- James Branch Cabell Learn more about this original Southern author.
- The Book of Counted Sorrows Read all known fragments of this book, the Invisible Library's most suggested volume.
- Readliterature.com A brand new site, and a chance to get in on the ground floor of bibliomania.
- Laurence Sterne in Cyberspace A wide selction of Web resources on Laurence Sterne.
- Merely a Genius A large site about Rex Stout.
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