World of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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The world of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is a fictional universe created by Alan Moore in the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where all of the characters and events from literature (and possibly the entirety of fiction) coexist. The world the characters inhabit is one more technologically advanced than our own, but also home to the strange and supernatural. Beyond the comic itself, the world of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is expanded upon by supplemental prose material, including The New Traveller's Almanac, Allan and the Sundered Veil, and the documents from the Black Dossier.
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[edit] The British Isles
In the Black Dossier, the alternate history of the League's United Kingdom is explored in depth. As in medieval British legend, in approximately 1100 BC, Brutus of Troy founds the kingdom of Britain (then called Brutain) with the capital at New Troy. He is accompanied by the ageless and gender swapping Orlando, who aids Brutus in subduing Brutain's population of savage giants and their chieftain, Gogmagog. In 43 AD Britain is invaded by the Roman Empire under Claudius. In 363, the year of Merlin's birth, the Emperor Julian declares Britain a pagan nation. In 410 the Romans withdrew, and Uther Pendragon rose to power. Circa 450, his son Arturus became king, ruling until 468. Britain descended into barbarism and anarchy, plagued by ogres, giants, and faeries ruled by Arthur's half-sister Morgana. The faerie remained a powerful force in Britain, so much so that King Henry VIII took the second cousin of King Oberon of the Faerie, the polydactyl Faery-blooded Anne Boleyn, as his wife. From this union sprang Queen Gloriana the First, who reigned from 1558 to 1603. Under her rule, magical and otherworldly forces became more popular in Britain. Her court held such notables as Johannes Suttle, Edward Face, and Sir Basildon Bond (ancestor to Campion and James Bond). Gloriana was also the patron and associate of William Shakespeare.
After her death, the puritanical magic hater King Jacob the First ascended to the throne, and proceeded to purge the faerie and other supernatural races from Britain, resulting in the faerie kingdom cutting all ties with the human world by 1616. It was also under Jacob's rule that the King Jacob Bible was compiled. Beginning in 1610, Prospero, by order of a decree written by Gloriana before her death, began to assemble the first 'League' of extraordinary individuals to defend Britain. The group disbanded when Prospero returned to the Blazing World, but was succeeded by similar groups in the 1740s, early 19th century, 1890s, early 20th century, and a failed group in the 1950s.
In the late 1890s the United Kingdom was attacked by Martian invaders, who were defeated via germ warfare. The nation went on to fight in World War I and against the Germany of Adenoid Hynkel in World War II. After the war, General Sir Harold Wharton, an agent implanted by rogue factions of M15 into the Labor Party, took power and turned the United Kingdom into a fascist dictatorship. Under Wharton's Ingsoc government, cameras monitored citizens' daily activities, torture of dissidents was widespread, and a reduced and simplified version of English known as Newspeak was made the official language of the state. After Wharton's death in 1952, he was succeeded by Gerald O'Brien. O'Brien was unable to maintain power, and conceded to the Conservative Party's demands to be reinstated as an official party. Soon after he was voted out of office, and most of the Ingsoc government's programs were reversed. By 2008, Britain is engaged in a prolonged war in Q'umar.
The first chapter of the The New Traveller's Almanac covers Britain and Ireland, describing, in addition to sites related to British and Irish folklore such as faeries, leprechauns, giants, The Mabinogion, and Arthurian legend, sites from both British and Irish literature such as:
[edit] Britain
- The Blazing World, a utopia ruled over by an Empress that can be reached via the north pole, as described by Margaret Cavendish in the prose narrative "The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World" appended to her "Observations upon Experimental Philosophy."
- "The Streaming Kingdom", from Jules Supervielle’s "L'Enfant de la Haute Mer" (1931), inhabited by the ghosts of drowned people.
- St. Brendan’s Isle, from Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies
- Victoria, the Puritan commune from "National Evils and Practical Remedies, with a Plan of a Model Town" by James Silk Buckingham
- Avondale, the phalanstery from "The Child of the Phalanstery" by Grant Allen, that systematically murders crippled and deformed children at birth
- Commutaria, the idyllic shire founded by Merlin, from Elspeth Ann Macey’s “Awayday” (1955)
- Abaton, a mythical Scottish phantom town that can only be glimpsed, from the work of Sir Thomas Bulfinch
- Baskerville Hall
- Thomas Love Peacock's Crotchet Castle
- Yalding Towers, from E. Nesbit's "The Enchanted Tower" (which contains dinosaur statures that magically come to life)
- Ravenal's Tower, where the remains of Richard Ravenal from E. Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods reside
- The White House, the residence of the Psammead from Five Children and It
- The Wish House from Rudyard Kipling's "The Wish House" (1926)
- Cold Comfort Farm from the eponymous Stella Gibbons novel.
- the mythical Ysbaddaden Pencawr, a castle that gets further away the closer you get to it
- Exham Priory, from Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" (in the book, the mansion is infested by demonic rats and leads down into an ancient cavern)
- Llareggub from Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood
- The floating island from The Floating Island by Richard Head (under the pseudonym "Frank Careless") (1673), inhabited by ninepins-playing Naiads
- Camford, the setting of The Adventure of the Creeping Man, where Professor Presbury invents a serum for turning men into apes
- A description of how the works of Lewis Carroll tie into the world: In 1861, Alice (referred to in the almanac as "Miss A.L.", a reference to Alice Liddell using the convention of withholding the names of children) disappears into a portal to a parallel universe (Wonderland) by the shores of River Thames, and washes up soaking wet several months later, after her disappearance created a media panic. Although she had been gone for months, only an afternoon had passed in Wonderland. She recounted how she'd fallen down a puzzling "hole" that she'd found in the riverbank, only to find herself in a disorienting realm where many laws of physics, even laws of logic, were entirely different from those of our world.
- She gets sucked into the world again 10 years later while visiting Oxford, via a looking-glass, but returns with her body inverted so that features on her left side are now on her right side and vice-versa. She has situs inversus, but does not die from it. She dies from malnutrition, because her amino acids and proteins are now isomers. A being made of isomer proteins is 'incompatible' with Earth's biosphere, which exhibits a preferential handedness. An expedition to explore the original riverbank hole was then organized by a "Dr. Bellman," accompanied by a lawyer, a banker, a butcher, a shoemaker, a bonnet-maker, a billiard-maker, and a woman named "Miss Beever" (a reference to the cast of "The Hunting of the Snark"). They too disappeared, and reappeared again months later, except the baker (who vanishes in "The Hunting of the Snark"); their adventure log is nothing but nonsensical poetry (a reference to "Phantasmagoria" and other poems by Carroll, including "The Hunting of the Snark"). The banker suffers the same fate as Alice, as he is found with his clothes inverted in color (a reference to the line in the poem "While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white"). All of the survivors are institutionalized, and years later, Mina Murray visits the only living survivor, Dr. Bellman, who gives her a blank piece of paper that's supposedly a map to Snark Island (the same map which Bellman used to navigate the sea to Snark Island).
- Winton Pond, from Graham Greene's "Under the Garden" (1963), which contains references to both Alice books, is subsequently mentioned in passing.
- Nightmare Abbey, from Thomas Love Peacock's novel of the same name
- Alderley Edge, as described in Alan Garner's "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen"
- The various locations in Bram Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm
- The world of the Vril, from a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. They are enigmatically connected to C.S. Lewis's Narnia. The word for "sin" and "evil" in their language is "Nania" [sic], (an invention of Moore, not Lytton) and the reader is directed to a (fictional) document referring to a British project to grow an apple tree. (Apple trees are a common motif in The Chronicles of Narnia)
- The underground Coal City from Jules Verne's "The Black Indies"
- The underground "Roman State" from Joseph O'Neill's Land Under England
- Brigadoon
- Airfowlness, the meeting-place of the crows from The Water Babies
- Coradine, from W.H. Hudson's A Crystal Age, where Mina Murray moves to at the end of volume two. (Moore ignores the fact that A Crystal Age takes place in the future. Although, in the world of the League, it's entirely possible that the future of the novel could be the past as we see it, much like the way Moore treated Orwell's 1984.)
- The Glittering Plain, from William Morris' "The Story of the Glittering Plain", a valley that grants enterers immortality, but making them unable to leave the valley
- The Isle of Ransom, from the same story
- Greyfriars School from the Billy Bunter stories
- Many of the sites mentioned in Arthurian lore are mentioned in the Almanac, with the legends treated as factual, historical events
- A boarding house run by the mother of Jerry Cornelius
[edit] Ireland
- Numerous locations and areas from from "Crock of Gold", by James Stephens, such as the leprechaun realm of Gort Na Cloca Mora
- The setting of Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant"
- Leixlip Castle, from Charles Robert Maturin's novel of the same name, haunted by faeries
- Dublin, the streets of which are haunted by the ghost of Molly Malone, and where a red-tiled house was haunted by a disembodied hand, as described in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard (most sources incorrectly give the title as "The Siege of the Red House")
- The house of Mr. Mathers that is a portal to a hellish parallel-Ireland, from "The Third Policeman"
- The setting of "The House on the Borderland", by William Hope Hodgson, which is also a portal to a demonic world
[edit] Continental Europe
The second chapter of the Almanac covers continental Europe.
[edit] Western Europe
- The state of Meccania, from "Meccania, the Super-State", by Gregory Owen
Islands off the coast of Iberia:
- The former-kingdom of Philomela
- The Capa Blanca Isles of "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle", by Hugh Lofting
- The island of Mayda
- Nut Island from Lucian of Samosata's "True History" (where the native fishermen make boats out of gigantic nut-shells)
- Coromandel, from Edward Lear's "The Courtship of Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò" (1877) Note: This not a reference to the real Coromandel, the south-eastern coastal region of India, but a reference to the fictional Coromandel from Lear's famous nonsense poem.
- Lanternland, a mythical island mentioned in François Rabelais' "Gargantua and Pantagruel"
- The island of the Lotus-Eaters
- Ogygia, from Homer's Odyssey
- The surreal island of "Her", from Alfred Jarry's "Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician"
- The Imaginary Isle from "La Relation de l'Isle imaginaire" (1659) by Anne Marie Louise de Montpensier
- The island of the Cyclopses, from Homer's Odyssey
- The Great Garabagne, Henri Michaux's "Voyage to Grand Garabagne" (1936) an island where the visitor's despairs come true
- Aiolio, home of Aiolos Hippotade, the god of wind, in Homer's Odyssey
- Monte de las Ánimas, a former-stronghold of the Knights Templar, mentioned by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
- Anostus, from Claudius Aelianus' "Varia Historia", with two rivers called "Pleasure" and "Grief". Beside these two streams grow fruit, the fruit of the former causes a lifetime of joy, and the fruit of the latter causes a lifetime of sorrow.
[edit] Spain and Portugal
- Max Frisch's Andorra
- Montesino's Cave, in La Mancha, where Prospero befriended Don Quixote, containing the tomb of Durandarte, Spanish folk hero
- Barataria, the "island" where Sancho Panza was governor for a short time.
- Exopotomania, from Boris Vian's "L'Automne à Pékin" (1956)
- Andrographia, from Nicolas-Edme Rétif's "Andrographe ou idées d'un honnête homme sur un projet de réglement proposé à toutes les nations de l'Europe pour opérer une réforme générale des moeurs, et par elle, le bonheur du genre humain avec des notes historiques et justificatives" (1782)
- The wizard Atlante's demonic castle, from Orlando Furioso
- The setting of Jorge Luis Borges' "La Muerte y la brújula" (1956)
- Auspasia, the most talkative land in the world, from Georges Duhamel's "Lettres d'Auspasie"
- Bengodi, from The Decameron, which has a mountain of parmesan cheese, and heliotropes that bestow invisibility (which, in the League world, Hawley Griffin used to create an invisibility serum)
- The libertine Trypheme, from Pierre Louys' "Les Aventures du roi Pausole" (1901)
[edit] Islands off the coast of France
- Papafiguiera, from Béroalde de Verville's "Le Moyen de parvenir. Oeuvre contenant la raison de tout ce qui a esté, est, et sera, avec démonstrations certaines et nécessaires selon la rencontre des effets de vertu", (1610) inhabited by extremely obese people.
- Ptyx, Laceland, Amorphous Island, Fragrant Island and Bran Isle, from Alfred Jarry's "Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician". The mottos of Fragrant Island come from two works of Paul Gauguin, Soyez mystérieuses and Soyez amoureuses, vous serez heureuses.
- Clerkship Island, Ruach the Windy Island, the Fortunate Islands, (including the Isle of Butterflies, inhabited by monstrous butterflies) Pastemolle the pie island, and Breadlessday Island, from Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel
- Leaveheavenalone, from the Kingsley's Water Babies
- Cyril Island, a mobile volcano in Alfred Jarry's "Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician", inhabited by Captain Kidd
- Thermometer Island, from "Les bijoux indiscrets", by Denis Diderot, in which the inhabitants have enchanted genitalia
[edit] France
- Flora, which was "murderously beset by witches", from Ferdinand Raimund's "Die gefesselte Phantasie" (1837)
- Lubec, from Béroalde de Verville's "Le Moyen de parvenir", where the inhabitants have removable genitals. Moore explains that it was founded by inhabitants of Thermometer Island. (There are no connections between the two works in reality)
- The haunted castle of Trinquelage, from Alphonse Daudet's "Lettres de mon moulin" (1866)
- The Nameless Castle from Denis Diderot's "Jacques le fataliste et son maître" (1796)
- The Kingdom of Poictesme, from James Branch Cabell's "Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice", (1919)
- Averoigne, from a series of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith
- the subterranean Grande Euscarie, inhabited by intelligent woolly mammoths from Luc Alberny's "Le Mammouth Bleu".
- The underground kingdoms of the Fattypuffs and Thinifers, the creation of André Maurois
- Baron Hugh's Castle, the setting of the film Les Visiteurs du soir
- Calejava, the republic from Claude Gilbert's "Histoire de Calejava ou de l'Ilse des Hommes Raisonnables, avec le Paralelle de leur Morale et du Christianisme" (1700)
- the sunken cities beneath the Bay of Biscay: Belesbat, from Claire Kenin's La Mer mystérieuse; Disappeared, from Victor Hugo's "La Ville disparue"; and Atlanteja, from Luigi Motta's Il tunnel sottomarino
- Islands off Brittany include Le Douar, from J.-H. Rosny jeune's L'Enigme du "Redoutable"; the Isle of Boredom, from Marie Anne de Roumier Robert's Les Ondins; Magic Maiden's Rock, from Amadis of Gaul; Realism Island, from G. K. Chesterton's "Introductory: On Gargoyles"; and Cork, from Lucian of Samosata's "True History" (which is made of cork, as are the feet of the natives)
- Alca, from Daniel Defoe's The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and Anatole France's Penguin Island
- the former island of Asbefore, from Jacques Prévert's Lettre des îles Baladar
- Brocéliande forest and Benoic
- the former Hurlubierean Empire, from Charles Nodier's Hurlubleu, Grand Manifafa d'Hurlubiere
- Morphopolis, from Maurice Barrère's La Cité du sommeil
- the Abbey of Thélème, from "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (the story of how Gargantua named Paris is also recounted)
- Parisian museums are said to contain relics from Aquilonia and the Melnibonean empire, including the hilt of a black sword
- Parisian sewers contain "Jean Valjean" graffiti.
- Locus Solus, from Raymond Roussel's Locus Solus
- Quiquendone, from Jules Verne's Une Fantaisie du Docteur Ox
- Expiation City, from Pierre-Simon Ballanche's La Ville des Expiations
- Aquilonia, a fictional country in the Hyboria, the land where Conan is situated from the works of Robert E. Howard
[edit] Belgium
- the castles of Bluebeard, the Beast, Princess Rosamund, and the ogre killed by Puss in Boots
- Harmonia, from Charles Fourier's Théorie des Quatre Mouvements and Georges Delbruck's Au pays de l'harmonie
[edit] Greece
- Xiros, from Jorge Luis Borges' "The Zahir"
- Devil's Island, Bandaguido, and Bandaguida, from Amadis of Gaul
- Abdera, whose rebellious horses are said to be the ancestors of the Houyhnhnms (this connection is Moore's invention)
- Ptolemais, from Edgar Allan Poe's "Shadow: A Parable"
- Cloudcuckooland, from Aristophanes' The Birds
- islands from Greek mythology, including Aiaia, Scylla, Charybdis, the Wandering Rocks, and Siren Island
- Pyrallis, from Pliny the Elder's Inventorum Natura
- Troy (or Ilium), as depicted in the works of Homer; a savage war between the half-divine race of Heroes raged here for ten years, circa 1184 BC
[edit] Italy
- The Castle of Otranto, from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto
- Portiuncula, from Stefan Andres' Die Reise nach Portiuncula
- Meloria Canal, from Emilio Salgari's I naviganti della Meloria
- Ersilia, from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities
- Torelore, from Aucassin and Nicolette
- the ruins of the Abbey of the Rose, from Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose
- the Castle of Udolpho, from Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho
- Goldenthal, from Heinrich Zschokke's Das Goldmacherdorf
- the realm of King Astralgus, from Ferdinand Raimund's Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind
- the Balbrigian and Bouloulabassian United Republic, from Max Jacob's Histoire du roi Kaboul Ier et du marmiton Gauwain
[edit] Germany
- the Duchy of Grand Fenwick
- the Grand Duchy, from "Der goldene Topf" and other stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann
- Weng, from Thomas Bernhard's Frost
- Runenberg, from Ludwig Tieck's "Der Runenberg"
- Horselberg, also known as Venusberg, from the legend of Tannhäuser
- Nexdorea, from Tom Hood's Petsetilla's Posy
- the Palace of Prince Prospero, from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death"
- Silling Castle, from the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom
- Cockaigne, from medieval legend
- Mummelsee and Centrum Terrae, from Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen's Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch
- the wardrobe leading to the Kingdom of the Dolls, from E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King"
- Violet-eyed prince Titus Groan, from Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy
- Auenthal and Maria Wuz, from Johann Paul Friedrich Richter's Leben des vergnügten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wuz in Auenthal (Maria Wuz is said to have influenced Pierre Menard)
- the Falun Fault, from E.T.A. Hoffmann's Die Bergwerke zu Falun
- the realm of the Regentrude, from Theodor Storm's Die Regentrude
- Sainte Beregonne, from Jean Ray's "La Ruelle ténébreuse"
- Auersperg Castle, from Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's Axël
- The Berlin Metropolis, from the film by Fritz Lang
- Adenoid Hynkle, from The Great Dictator
[edit] The Netherlands
- Vondervotteimittis, from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Devil in the Belfry"
- the island Laiquihire, from Voyage Curieux d'un Philadelphe dans des Pays nouvellement Découverts
[edit] Scandinavia
- Devil's Teeth, from Paul Alperine's La Citadelle des Glaces
- Estotiland and Drogio, from the Zeno map
- Hekla as described in Tommaso Porcacchi's Le isole piu' famose del mondo
- Snæfellsjökull, from Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Daland's Village, the only port where The Flying Dutchman is allowed to land
- Nazar, from Ludvig Holberg's Niels Klim's Underground Travels
- The Dovre Fjell mountains, from Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt
- Capillaria, from Frigyes Karinthy's Capillaria
- The Snow Queen's Castle, from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen"
- Moominvalley, from Tove Jansson's Moomin books
- Cimmeria, from Robert E. Howard's Conan stories
[edit] Eastern Europe
- Klopstokia, from Million Dollar Legs
- Ubu's kingdom, from Alfred Jarry's Ubu plays
- Klepsydra Sanatorium, from Bruno Schulz's Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
- the City of the Happy Prince, from Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince"
- Ruritania, from Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda
- Lutha, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Mad King
- The Castle, from Franz Kafka's The Castle
- The penal colony from Franz Kafka's In the Penal Colony
- Wolf's Glen, from the opera Der Freischütz
- Sylvania and Freedonia, from Duck Soup
- Castle Karpathenburg, from Jules Verne's The Castle of the Carpathians (1892)
- Dracula's castle
- the City of Dreadful Night, from James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night
- Selene, the city of vampires from Paul Féval's La Ville-Vampire
- Evarchia, from Brigid Brophy's Palace Without Chairs
- Leuke as described in Greek mythology
- The Palace of Justice is from Marco Denevi's "¿El primer cuento de Kafka?" (1966).
[edit] The Americas
The third chapter of the Almanac covers the Americas
[edit] Off the coast of South America
- the undersea realm of Pepperland, from the movie Yellow Submarine
- the Riallaro Archipelago, from John Macmillan Brown's Riallaro, the Archipelago of Exiles and Limanora, the Island of Progress
- Juan Fernandez, and Frivola, from the Abbé Gabriel François Coyer's La découverte de l'isle frivole (A Discovery of the Island Frivola)
- Meipe, from André Maurois' Meïpe ou La Délivrance
- Mount Analogue, from René Daumal's Mount Analogue
- Coral Island, from R.M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island
- Rose, from Mervyn Peake's Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor
- Orofena, from H. Rider Haggard's When the World Shook
- Maïna, from André Maurois' Voyage au Pays de Articoles
- Cook's Island, from E. Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet
- the Mardi Archipelago, from Herman Melville's Mardi and a Voyage Thither
- Bali Hai, from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific
- Zara's Kingdom, from Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited
- Marsh's Island, from H. P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"
- Noble's Island, from H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau
- Rampole Island, from H.G. Wells' Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island
- Villings, from Adolfo Bioy Casares' The Invention of Morel
- the land of the Houyhnhnms, from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels
- Oceana, from James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana
- Utopia, from Sir Thomas More's Utopia
- Spidermonkey Island, from Hugh Lofting's The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
- Ferdinand's Island, from Johann Michael Fleischer's Der Nordische Robinson
- Speranza, from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
- Herland, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland
- Tacarigua, from Ronald Firbank's Prancing Nigger
- Zaroff's Island, from Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game"
- Cacklogallinia, from Samuel Brunt's A Voyage to Cacklogallinia
[edit] In South America
- Babel, from Jorge Luis Borges' "The Library of Babel"
- Roncador, from Herbert Read's The Green Child
- El Dorado is mentioned, as well as an expedition led by Auric Goldfinger to uncover it.
- the Country of the Blind, from H.G. Wells' "The Country of the Blind"
- Macondo, from Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Ewaipanoma, from Sir Walter Raleigh's The Discovery of Guiana
- Watkinsland, from Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell
- Quivera, from Vaughan Wilkins' The City of Frozen Fire, or from the Spanish legend of Quivira.
- Maple White Land, from Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World
- the Black Lagoon, from Creature from the Black Lagoon
[edit] Off the coast of North America
- the Island of Birds, from Michel Tremblay's Contes pour buveurs attardés
- Waferdanos, from Voyage Curieux d'un Philadelphe dans des Pays nouvellement Découverts
- Buyan, from Russian folklore
- Caseosa, Cabbalussa, and Dream Island, all from Lucian of Samosata's "True History"
- Idol Island and Winkfield Island, from Unca Eliza Winkfield's The Female American
- Militia, populated by Simlax shrubs
- the Island of Moving Trees, from Miguel de Cervantes' The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda
- Ursina and Vulpina, from The Floating Island
- the Island of Fortune, the Island of Chance, and Philosophy Isle, from Abbé Balthazard's L'Isle Des Philosophes Et Plusieurs Autres
- the Island of the Palace of Joy, from Orlando Innamorato
- Rossum's Island, from Karel Capek's R.U.R.
- Treasure Island, from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island
- Captain Sparrow's Island, from S. Fowler Wright's The Island of Captain Sparrow
- Orphan Island, from Rose Macauley's Orphan Island
[edit] In North America
- Rootabaga Country, from Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories
- Chisholm Prison, from "The Problem of Cell 13", Jacques Futrelle's first Professor Van Dusen story
- Twin Peaks
- Mahagonny, from Bertolt Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
- Cricket Creek, from Evelyn Sibley Lampman's The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek
- iDEATH, from Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar
- Yoknapatawpha County, from the works of William Faulkner
- Drexara, from Antoine François Prévost's Le Philosophe Anglois
- Dogpatch, from the comic strip Li'l Abner
- the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, from Franz Kafka's Amerika (and, implicitly, Oklahoma!)
- Lake La Metrie, from Wardon Curtis' "The Monster of Lake La Metrie"
- Rampart Junction, from Ray Bradbury's "The Town Where No One Got Off"
- Gone-Away Lake, from Elizabeth Enright's Gone-Away Lake
- Centerboro, from Walter R. Brooks' Freddy the Pig books
- Sleepy Hollow, from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
- Stepford, from Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives
- Arkham, Massachusetts (and, specifically the Witch House residing there) from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft gets a mention
- Springfield, the town where Moore says the Cat in the Hat appeared. (The Gazeteer places the town in Massachusetts, which has an actual town named Springfield.)
- Jerusalem's Lot, from Stephen King's Salem's Lot
- Eastwick, from John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick
- Whiton House, from Edward Eager's The Time Garden
- Hill House, from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House
- The lost party from the Jamestown Colony from Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
- Bayport, from The Hardy Boys
- The Mexican villa of Don Diego de la Vega, better known as Zorro
- In a passage about Los Angeles, an ancestor of The Dude from Joel and Ethan Coen's film The Big Lebowski is mentioned
- Palenville, New York from Washington Irving's "Rip van Winkle"
- Mayberry, North Carolina from The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D.
- Central City, home of the Flash
- Riverdale, the location of the Archie comics
- Gotham City, home of Batman
[edit] Africa and the Middle East
The fourth chapter of the Almanac covers Africa and the Middle East
- The jungle cabin of the Greystoke family, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes.
- Mongaza Island, from Amadis of Gaul
- Mogador, from Alberto Ruy-Sánchez's Los nombres del aire
- the Harmattan Rocks and No-Man's-Land, from Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle's Post Office
- Nacumera, from The Travels of John Mandeville
- Wild Island, from Ruth Stiles Gannett's My Father's Dragon
- Bustrol, from Simon Tyssot de Patot's Voyage et Avantures de Jaques Massé
- Aepyornis, from H.G. Wells' "Aepyornis Island"
- Skull Island, from King Kong
- Hewit's Island, from Charles Dibdin's Hannah Hewit
- the island from William Golding's Lord of the Flies
- The Azanian Empire, from Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief
- Ardistan and Djinnistan, from Karl May's Ardistan and Der Mir von Djinnistan
- Samarah and Alkoremi, from William Beckford's Vathek
- Farghestan and Orsenna, from Julien Gracq's Le Rivage des Syrtes
- Garamanti Country, from Antonio de Guevara's Reloj de príncipes
- Jannati Shah, from George Allan England's The Flying Legion
- the Kingdom of the Amphicleocles, from Charles de Fieux Mouhy's Lamekis, ou les voyages extraordinaires d'un Egyptien dans la terre intérieure, avec la découverte de l'Isle des Silphides, enrichi des notes curieuses
- Silence, from Edgar Allan Poe's "Silence: A Fable"
- Arimaspian Country
- Ishmaelia, from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop
- Freeland, from Theodor Hertzka's Freiland
- Bong Tree Land, from Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat"
- Basilisk Country
- Interzone, from William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch
- Crotalophoboi Land, from Norman Douglas' South Wind
- Ouidah, as described by Bruce Chatwin in The Viceroy of Ouidah
- Deads' Town and Unreturnable-Heaven, from Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drunkard and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town
- The kingdom of Babar the Elephant
- The camp set up by Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
- Qumar from The West Wing
- The Land of Punt
- Kor, from the Allan Quatermain and Ayesha novels of H. Rider Haggard, "in what is now Uganda." Home to the Flame of Immortality.
- The City of the Immortals from Jorge Luis Borges’ “El Inmortal”
[edit] Asia and the Australias
The fifth chapter of the Almanac covers Asia and the Australias
- Antangil, from Histoire du grand et admirable royaume d'Antangil Inconnu jusques à présent à tous Historiens et Cosmographes
- Terre Australe, from Gabriel de Foigny's La Terre Australe Connue
- the ruins of Standard Island, from Jules Verne's L'Ile à hélice
- the Jumelles, from de Catalde's Le paysan gentilhomme, ou Aventures de M. Ransau avec son voyage aux Isles jumelles
- Caspak, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot and its sequels
- Farandoulie, from Albert Robida's Voyages Très Extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul
- Erewhon, from Samuel Butler's Erewhon
- Altruria, from William Dean Howells' A Traveller from Altruria
- Flotsam, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Cave Girl
- Pala and Rendang, from Aldous Huxley's Island
- Cuffycoat's Island, from André Lichtenberger's Pickles ou récits à la mode anglaise
- Manoba, from Paul Scott's The Birds of Paradise
- Bensalem, from Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis
- New Switzerland, from Johann David Wyss' The Swiss Family Robinson
- Yoka Island, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Mucker
- Green Sand Island, Black Sand Island, and Red Sand Island, from Tancrède Vallerey's L'Ile au sable vert
- Formosa, as described by George Psalmanazar
- Mask Island, from Charles de Fieux Mouhy's Les Masque de Fer
- The Sacred Valley, from Maurice Champagne's La Vallée mystérieuse
- Titipu, from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado
- Pnom Dhek and Lodidhapura, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Jungle Girl
- Mount Tsintsin-Dagh, from Paul Alperine's Ombres sur le Thibet
- Mount Karakal and Shangri-La, from James Hilton's Lost Horizon
- Mount K’un Lun, home to the goddess Hsi Wang Mu, the Royal Mother of the West.
- Pauk, from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Possessed
- Gondour, from Mark Twain's The Curious Republic of Gondour
- Xanadu, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"
- R'lyeh, "some distance from the coastline of New Zealand", from the works of H.P. Lovecraft
[edit] Polar Regions
The sixth chapter of the Almanac covers the Arctic and Antarctica
[edit] Islands and seas off the coast of Antarctica
- Megapatagonia, archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean stretching south from Tierra del Fuego, similar to the Blazing World archipelago north of Britain, inhabited by animal men and an inverse of French society. The capital city is "Sirap." From La Découverte australe par un homme-volant by Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne
- Pyrandia island, in the South Pacific Ocean southwest of the Megapatagonia islands, west of the Antarctic peninsula, home to fire men, from Supplément de l'Histoire véritable de Lucien by Jean Jacobé de Frémont d'Ablancourt
- The Academic Sea, somewhere between McMurdo Sound and the Ross Sea, containing the city of Christianopolis on the island of Caphar Salama, from Reipublicae Christianapolitinae Descriptio (or Description of the Republic of Christianopolis) by Johannes Valentinus Andreae
- The Leap Islands, in LoEG also be part of the Academic Sea, containing Aggregation Harbour on the Isle of Leaphigh, inhabited by enlightened monkey-men, from The Monikins by James Fennimore Cooper
- Tsalal island, in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Enderby Land, from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Edgar Allan Poe
[edit] Antarctica
- Antarctic France, on the Victoria Land Peninsula, from L'Aventurier Français by Robert-Martin Lesuire
- Empire of Alsondons, a subterranean land beneath Mac Robertson Land, from L'Aventurier Français by Robert-Martin Lesuire
- The Antarctic entrance to Pluto, a subterranean land, from Voyage au centre de la terre (or Journey to the Centre of the Earth) by Jules Verne
- Iron Mountains, probably in Queen Maud Land, from Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
- Present Land from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Edgar Allan Poe (in LoEG Present Land is surrounded by the Iron Mountains)
- Mountains of Madness and the City of the Old Ones, from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft (in LoEG the Mountains of Madness are part of the Iron Mountains)
- Kosekin Country, subterranean land beneath either Queen Maud Land or Palmer Land, from A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder by James De Mille
[edit] Northern Asia
- Plutonia from Plutonia by Vladimir Obruchev
- The Arctic entrance to Pluto, a subterranean land, from Voyage au centre de la terre (or Journey to the Centre of the Earth) by Jules Verne
[edit] Islands and other locations in the Arctic Ocean
- Elisee Reclus Island, Cristallopolis (French Colony), Maurel City (American Colony), from Une Ville de Verre by Alphonse Brown
- Vichenbolk Land, island kingdom discovered by Lemuel Gulliver, from Pickles ou récits à la mode anglaise by André Lichtenberger
- North Pole Kingdom, a land populated by civilized dinosaurs living under the polar ice cap, from Le Peuple du Pôle by Carles Derennes
- Polar Bear Kingdom, inhabited by intelligent polar bears who also advertise Coca-Cola, from 20,000 Lieues Sous Les Glaces (or 20,000 Leagues Under the Ice) by Mór Jókai and a parody of the 1993 "Polar Bears" Coca-Cola advertising campaign by Creative Artists Agency
- Mountain-Door to Mandai Country, subterranean land, from Iran by Hirmiz bar Anhar
- Gaster Island from The Fourth Book of the Deeds and Sayings of the Good Pantagruel by François Rabelais
- The Sea of Frozen Words from The Fourth Book of the Deeds and Sayings of the Good Pantagruel by François Rabelais
- Queen Island from Les Aventures du capitaine Hatteras, or (The Adventures of Captain Hatteras) by Jules Verne
- The Island of Thule, from The Bibliotheca historia (Library of History) by Diodorus Siculus, Geographika (Geography) by Strabo, and The Gothic War by Procopius (or possibly Thule from Robert E. Howard's Kull stories)
- Hyperborea from Inventorum Natura (Natural History) by Pliny the Elder
- The Back of the North Wind, a warm region of the Arctic, from At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
- Toyland, from Little Noddy Goes to Toyland by Enid Blyton, ruled over by Olimpia (from "Der Sandmann," from the book Nachtstücke or Night-Pieces by E.T.A. Hoffmann) and the Creature (from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
- The Arctic counterpart to the Iron Mountains, with an entrance to the subterranean land of either Pluto, Pellucidar (from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs), Atavatabar (from The Goddess of Atavatabar by William R. Bradshaw, or Ruffal (from La vie, les avanture, and le voyage de Groenland du Révérend Père Cordelier Pierre de Mesange by Simon Tyssot de Patot)
- The Real North Pole, from The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel
- Peacepool, from The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby by Charles Kingsley
- The home of Santa Claus, described as a shaman clad in reindeer hide whose spirit guides ("little helpers") encourage him to spread joy around the world on the winter solstice. He has also been visited by the Coca-Cola representatives.
[edit] Beyond the world
- Varnal, the Green City on Mars, from Kane of Old Mars, by Michael Moorcock
- The dreamlands, from "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" by H. P. Lovecraft
- Yuggoth, a trans-material dimension, from "The Whisperer in Darkness" by H. P. Lovecraft
- Barsoom, the fictional version of Mars from the series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, home of John Carter.
- The Faerie homeland, a half-realm or "fractional dimension" that is home to the Faerie
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Jess Nevins's annotations on each of the issues of the series.
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