The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic

Having just yesterday received my copy of this book, I clearly have not read all of it. Looking at the size, why did I purchase such a strange book. This morning, with my first coffee of the day, I decided to leaf through it and immediately found a reference to “Gormenghast” by Mervyn Peake, one of my all-time favorites. Then there was this little snippet from Francois Rabelais’ "Gargantua and Pantagruel" about The Sea of Frozen Words: “… In winter, all words and sounds in the area are frozen; as the milder weather approaches in spring, they begin to thaw out and can be clearly heard. Travelers can pick up the frozen words, which resemble crystalized sweets of various colors." That alone makes this purchase worthwhile. Then I flipped the pages again and saw a piece about the Fuddles in "The Emerald City of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. Another was "The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-popple" by Edward Lear. What a delight. I didn’t want to leave after I finished my coffee, but life intervenes and I will look forward to returning to this lovely book time and time again.

This book is a must have for story tellers and highly visual artists...the rich history of human folklore blooms vividly as you read each tale. Forget the boring boogeyman scary stories...go full-color imagination as you read this gem. All that's missing is the actual smell of the characters, no kidding...this book is riveting, making you drift off to imaginary worlds with every sentence. It's a great read for thespians, too! Gets you out of your creative rut and sends you careening into fantasy worlds. I bought it to inspire my murals, oh, my, the places I'd go if this were real! You have to get this book for fall/winter blustery night tales. (Unpaid endorsement!). Get it!

I got this book when I was bed-ridden with the flu to help me cope with the days and nights of dizzy spells and the blahs. It not only got me through the ordeal but still serves me well when I want to take an imaginary trip to "Neverland", meaning the realms of childhood and adulthood wonderment. The book doesn't include places that might occupy corners of our own dreary work-a-day world, but those "over the rainbow" places created by talented fabulists who take their readers on magical journeys. Not all the places are pleasant.They are not necessarily utopias. Some of the places are those you might have visited in a nightmare. But they are nonetheless places to which you may want to travel...or revisit, if you've read the stories using the places as a setting. In some cases, it may motivate the browser to read the works from which the descriptions are derived. From the quasi-mathematical vistas of Flatland to the dreamscapes of Windsor Mackay's Slumberland, this travelogue will provide the armchair voyager with many hours of pleasure.

Love this book. It is indeed amazing. I can get lost in it for hours. Great for when your imagination has hit a wall. It’s also a starting point for your creativity. I visualize the places and paint them. Perfect inspiration.

I like maps as part of a fictional story. This is what attracted me to the title initially. A map is a window into the story's world, and its secrets. A well developed, richly detailed story can be a map in and of itself because I create the map in my imagination. This book collects other worlds past writers have written about -- many times obsure -- and tells of them. It has many maps of these worlds, too (all b/w). It is sort of like a travel book (as one reviewer wrote) and the reader (me, you) are being spoken to as if the worlds are real and present, and that if we were to visit them... What's real and what's not? Very fun! It is also a fantastic stimulator of imagination - because of the so many worlds described. The creativity of the writers (I'm referring to the original writers/creators of the worlds described, and who are cited on every entry) is easy to access with the dictionary approach to this book, as it uses alphabetized brief entries (quarter/half page to several pages). Want to write fantasy or science fiction? See in your imagination some of the incredible worlds others have created. And many were created so long ago! Some reviewers felt that some prominant worlds were left out -- I'm OK with this because it allowed for many others to be included to which I never would have had access. I am a tough rater. I gave this thick book 4 stars only because I would like included more maps - I love maps (there are a lot already in the book!) and illustrations. Otherwise, it is a 5.

I first came upon this book during my studies of medieval travel literature in Oxford. It was a large, older, hard-bound edition, which gave the fantastic lands inside it almost a magical flavor. I knew then that I had to have a copy of my own.Though only a reference book, this book should be read as anything but. Each entry is a small vacation from this planet, to a place often eerily similar. The destinations described are gathered from throughout the world of fiction and make-believe. This compendium contains all the "never-neverlands" and the land of "OZ" and "Xexotland", complete with illustrations, yet fails to mention small things such as Massachusetts.The creators range from the medieval comic-grotesque to the latest political cynics of our day.As amusement and as a literary reference, this book is worth it.

Seems all- inclusive.I like reading though it. Even learned about several places and things I'd never heard of, before.