Free eBooks The Dictionary Of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated And Expanded Classic Available To Downloads

                
              
Free eBooks 
The Dictionary Of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated And Expanded Classic Available To Downloads
From Atlantis to Xanadu and beyond, this Baedeker of make-believe takes readers on a tour of more than 1,200 realms invented by storytellers from Homer's day to our own. Here you will find Shangri-La and El Dorado; Utopia and Middle Earth; Wonderland and Freedonia. Here too are Jurassic Park, Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, and the fabulous world of Harry Potter. The history and behavior of the inhabitants of these lands are described in loving detail, and are supplemented by more than 200 maps and illustrations that depict the lay of the land in a host of elsewheres. A must-have for the library of every dedicated reader, fantasy fan, or passionate browser, Dictionary is a witty and acute guide for any armchair traveler's journey into the landscape of the imagination.
Paperback: 804 pages
Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (November 2, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0156008726
ISBN-13: 978-0156008723
Product Dimensions:  7 x 2 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:  4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #294,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)   #136 in Books > Reference > Encyclopedias & Subject Guides > Literature   #148 in Books > Reference > Encyclopedias & Subject Guides > Mythology & Folklore   #149 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Genres & Styles > Science Fiction & Fantasy
I bought this book because I was intriqued by the concept. A book that catalogs all of the places mentioned in other books. What I got completely amazed me. Not only were the places cataloged and indexed by book and by place, but the descriptions were long, even better they included maps.The people who put together this book understood that the reason people would buy the book was not because they were looking for a one line definition but because they were looking for information about the places themselves. For example, for the definition of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it would have been easy to write a one line definition stating that this was the school that Harry Potter attended in the Harry Potter series. Instead the book has a definition several pages long including a drawing and also explains everything that has so far been written about the school including the moving staircases and the portraits on the walls. That is just the beginning thousands of places are included in the book, and all are given as much attention in their descriptions as the authors took to explain the locations in the original works of literature.So enjoy this book, it will make you want to read about places to help you to figure out if you want to read the books that created them.
I recieved this book for Christmas from my paternal grandparents, who always give me tight stuff. I was crazy about this book, which covers every imaginery place in any book from Prospero's Island in "The Tempest" (great play, by the way) to Thomas More's Utopia. It was an amazing book. If you have ever loved any fantasy book, get this book! It has something to satisfy every interest.
Somewhat disappointed with this "newly updated and expanded" edition. Some entries that appeared in the original are omitted from the new edition. For a book on imaginary places, it's surprising how little space was allocated to Fairyland, especially when compared with the several-pages-long entry on Hogwarts.Maps are everything when exploring imaginary places; they provide atmosphere as well as information. The maps in this book are generic line drawings, informative but unenchanting, and I can only guess that the authors were unable to negotiate reprinting permissions.We suggest buying a copy of the original 1980 edition along with the current one; the older book may not have Hogwarts, but it casts its own spell. Also get a copy of An Atlas of Fantasy by Jeremiah Post, which is devoted to reproductions of authentic imaginary maps. Fairyland is documented with Bernard Sleigh's wonderful "Ancient Map of Fairyland" in a two-page spread, Tolkien's famous maps and some private conworlds and con-countries such as Thomas Williams Malkin's "Allestone" are included.
I enjoyed "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" very much, and found it an interesting source for maps and summarized information on fictional places. There were some places that I felt should have been mentioned in the Dictionary that weren't, although there are certainly a great number of entries already. One problem I have is that the map of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is not entirely faithful to the original (most likely due to the difference in page dimensions). On the whole, though, this is a wonderful book.
This book, which has places from Lovecraft, Tolkien, Baum, and nearly every other fiction writer, is really a gem. It has cross references between related locales, bibliogaphic data for research papers and the like, and maps and pictures. You can look up virtually every allusion there is to made up places, and tourist information is included if you somehow manage to get to any of them. I recommend this book heartily, and have enjoyed it constantly for the nearly 10 years I've owned it.
This is the perfect companion for anyone who loves to daydream and go to imaginary places. The Abbey of the Rose would easily be the setting for a great romance and one of my favorites is Exopotamia, that vast deserted land "that because of the total lack of air, the atmosphere seems very healthy." Cloudcuckooland is another fav, a place I know well in my daydreams. Buy it, read it, over and over again. Sheer pleasure!
A trove of wonders, many familiar, many not. It's still nice to browse through the various lands of Oz (with an excellent map to guide me), or to refresh in my mind where the Tombs of Atuan lie in the Islands of the Earthsea Archipelago. It's also wondrous to find Selene, the city of the Vampires where I "without fear, must sprinkle them with vampire's heart-ash; the vampires will then explode in a bluish flash." This is not, and cannot be, a comprehensive encyclopedia of all lands fantastic, but it is an extensive collection of wondrous places. Of note, readers of Science Fiction will find no familiar planets to peruse. These are the locales of Terrestrial imagination, of Middle Earth and Narnia and Atlantis and their ilk. My only personal complaint and frustration is how difficult it will be to retrieve many of the source works used by the authors. Paul Feval's LA VILLE VAMPIRE (Paris, 1875) is typical of the kind of treasure I would like to read in full, but can only find a couple of French language copies at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. Alas, I'll settle for a fantasy of escape to Iffish, that quiet island in the Earthsea Archipelago where if I'm very still, I might catch a view of a rare harrekki, chasing wasps and foraging for birds eggs. Wistful sighs all around.
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic TOP PLACES IN THE WORLD TO PLAN YOUR VACATION / HONEYMOON / RETIREMENT: Bonus Chapters Included: TOP 5 Places To Take Photos and Top 5 Places for "City ... vacation packages, vacation photos Book 1) Relocate! 25 Great Bug Out Communities: Safe Places To Live If Bad Things Happen - Wonderful Places To Call Home If They Don't. Animal Puzzles for the Scroll Saw, Second Edition: Newly Revised & Expanded, Now 50 Projects in Wood (Scroll Saw Woodworki) Over The Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, Newly Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition Gemstones of the World: Newly Revised & Expanded Fourth Edition The Wedding Dress: Newly Revised and Updated Collector's Edition Celiac Disease (Newly Revised and Updated): A Hidden Epidemic 14,000 Things to Be Happy About.: Newly Revised and Updated The Transplant Imaginary: Mechanical Hearts, Animal Parts, and Moral Thinking in Highly Experimental Science The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Surveying the Landscape of Race and Nation in Hispaniola (Critical Caribbean Studies) Imaginary Vessels The Imaginary Invalid The Imaginary Invalid: A Comedy (Timeless Classics) The Book of Imaginary Beings (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Oxford Picture Dictionary English-Chinese: Bilingual Dictionary for Chinese speaking teenage and adult students of English (Oxford Picture Dictionary 2E) Oxford Picture Dictionary English-Spanish: Bilingual Dictionary for Spanish speaking teenage and adult students of English (Oxford Picture Dictionary 2E) Oxford Picture Dictionary English-Vietnamese: Bilingual Dictionary for Vietnamese speaking teenage and adult students of English (Oxford Picture Dictionary 2E) Classic TV: WESTERNS 1 - SIX COMPLETE CLASSIC TELEVISION COWBOY COMIC BOOKS: OVER 200 PAGES OF COWBOYS, INDIANS AND OUTLAWS (CLASSIC TV COMIC BOOKS) Dana Carpender's NEW Carb and Calorie Counter-Expanded, Revised, and Updated 4th Edition: Your Complete Guide to Total Carbs, Net Carbs, Calories, and More 