Notes on League of

Extraordinary Gentlemen v2 #2
by Jess Nevins.
Updated 25 October 2002. Updates in blue.
Coming in May, 2003, from MonkeyBrain Press: Heroes and
Monsters, the Unofficial Companion to League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen.
A press release with more details is forthcoming.
With grateful thanks to Steve Higgins for hooking me up with the
preview issue, and with no thanks at all to the FM
1960 branch of Bedrock City of Houston, to whom "customer service" is
an alien concept.

(The image above is copyright 2002 Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill. The
text here, except where otherwise credited, is copyright 2002 Jess
Nevins, and may not be duplicated, in part or in whole, without my
permission.)
(Additions and corrections are of course appreciated.)
Page 1. Panel 1. Campion Bond is first seen in much the same way
that he was first seen on Page 1 of League v1 #1, down to his Aubrey
Beardsley cigarette case.
Panel 2. Several people, Hooper among them, have pointed out that
Bond's carriage has a Masonic symbol. The ties between MI-5 and the
Masons were made more explicit on Page 23 of Issue #4 of the first
series.
John Gregory points out that in Chapter Three of the H.G. Wells novel
War of the Worlds (1898) there is the following passage: "There were
half a dozen flies or more from the Woking station standing in the road
by the sand pits, a basketchaise from Chobham, and a rather lordly
carriage." John wonders if Bond's carriage is meant to be the "lordly
carriage."
Panel 4. As with much of the material in this issue, the newspaper
Griffin is holding comes from the War of the Worlds. In that novel is the
following passage:
In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very
much. The early editions of the evening papers had startled London
with enormous headlines:
"A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS."
"REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING,"
and so forth.
"Visitor" points out that I missed the other headline on the newspaper
Griffin is holding. The words, "Dr. Nikola," are just barely visible. This is
a reference to Guy Boothby's supervillain Dr. Nikola, who was
introduced in an eight-part storyline in Windsor Magazine, which was
collected as A Bid For Fortune (1895), and went on to appear four more
novels. Nikola is one of the great 19th century mad scientists and
archvillains; I have information on him on my Fantastic Victoriana site.
The new M Campion refers to is Mycroft Holmes, the brother of Sherlock
Holmes; he was seen on Page 23 of League v1 #6 taking over as the
new M. It is a part of Sherlockian canon that Mycroft does not like to
travel; in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter," Sherlock describes
his brother this way:
Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall
every morning and back every evening. From year's end to year's end
he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the
Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms.
Panel 5. The girl in the left-hand side of the panel resembles the
Tenniel drawings of Alice, from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. But
in League v2 #1 Alice is described as having died almost 30 years
before the events of this issue.
The "Prussians," for the less historically minded among you, were the
Germans, rivals to the British Empire at the turn of the 20
th
century.
(Prussia, historically, was Eastern Germany, along the Polish border;
Prussia and the lesser Germanic/Hapsburg states were united and
became the German Empire in 1871.) Henry Blanco corrects my too-
hasty explanation of the Hapsburgs with the following:
The Habsburg state of Austria was not incorporated into the German
Empire; it was the seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While the south
German (and Catholic) states were under the Austrian sphere of
influence before unification, they were not officially part of that empire.
A major international question during the mid-19
th
century was whether
the Prussians or Austrians would unite the lesser German states, and
ultimately the Prussians won out.
Page 2. I'm about to give away the plot. The enormous capsule seen
here is one of the Martians' crafts; in War of the Worlds (hereafter
WotW) it is described as "a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline
softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter
of about thirty yards."
Page 3. Panel 1. To answer Campion's question, in WotW Stent, the
"Astronomer Royal" Hyde mentions, directed the workmen excavating
the cylinder.
Panel 2. Kieran Cowan usefully points out that the head of Campion
Bond's cane has the Morse Code for "007."
Panel 5. The dialogue here is reproduced verbatim from Chapter 4 of
WotW.
Page 4. Panel 1. In WotW the Martians' first appearance is described
thusly:
A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising
slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the
light, it glistened like wet leather.
Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass
that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one
might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim
of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature
heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped
the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air.
Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the
strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its
pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin
beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth,
the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in
a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of
movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above
all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at once vital,
intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something
fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of
the tedious movements unspeakably nasty.
Page 5. Panel 1. The Martian falling from the cylinder into the pit
occurs in Chapter Four of WotW. (It hardly needs saying that Moore and
O'Neill are showing great faithfulness to the original book.)
Panels 3-5. The man trying to crawl from the pit is from WotW,
Chapter Four:
And then, with a renewed horror, I saw a round, black object bobbing
up and down on the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman
who had fallen in, but showing as a little black object against the hot
western sun. Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he
seemed to slip back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he
vanished, and I could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me.
Page 6. Panel 3. The pair between Quatermain and Hyde are from
WotW; they are the narrator (on the left, with his back to us) and one of
the narrator's neighbors. The relevant passage, from Chapter Five:
One man I approached--he was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine,
though I did not know his name--and accosted. But it was scarcely a
time for articulate conversation.
"What ugly brutes!" he said. "Good God! What ugly brutes!" He
repeated this over and over again.
Page 7. Panel 1. The expedition, with the lead man waving the flag, is
from WotW Chapter Five.
"That Reverend Harding who writes to the newspapers so often" was
mentioned in League v1 #2; he is the Reverend Septimus Harding, from
Anthony Trollope's The Warden (1855) and the succeeding Barsetshire
novels.
Panel 5. From Chapter Five of WotW:
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish
smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove up, one
after the other, straight into the still air.
Page 9. Panel 1. The group here is described in War of the Worlds:
...the group of bystanders...among these were a couple of cyclists, a
jobbing gardener I employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg
the butcher and his little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies
who were accustomed to hang about the railway station.
Panels 2-3. From Chapter Five of WotW:
Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to
another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some
invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as
if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.
Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and
falling, and their supporters turning to run.
I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from
man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was
something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light,
and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft of heat
passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush
became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards
Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings
suddenly set alight.
Page 10. Panels 1-2. From Chapter Five of WotW:
It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this
invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me by
the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied to
stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sand pits and the sudden squeal of
a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an invisible yet
intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather between me
and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the sand pits the
dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a crash far away
to the left where the road from Woking station opens out on the
common. Forthwith the hissing and humming ceased, and the black,
dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.
Page 13. Panel 4. The inn, "The Bleak House," is in all likelihood a
reference to Charles Dickens' The Bleak House (1852), Dickens'
legendary take-down of the British legal system. Bleak House, in the
novel, was the source of "this scarecrow of a suit," the interminable
Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Ian Crichton writes,
A quick note to inform you that The Bleak House inn is an actual
coaching inn and hostelry, public house, etc., that has stood on the
Woking to Weybridge road, the A320, for several centuries, and in fact,
may have inspired Mr. Dickens' The Bleak House, as opposed to vice-
versa!
As a resident of the fair county of Surrey, from just outside Woking, and
a local history buff, I can confirm the accuracy of the mentioned locales
(Horsell, Chobham etc.) and barracks, all here at the time.
Page 15. Panel 5. Quaterman's "this whole affair reminds me of a
dream I once had" is a reference to his dream in "Allan and the
Sundered Veil," from the first League miniseries.
Page 16. Panel 1. These trooops appear in Chapter Eight of WotW:
About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed
along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second
company marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the
common. Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the
common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be
missing. The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and
was busy questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities
were certainly alive to the seriousness of the business. About eleven,
the next morning's papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two
Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started
from Aldershot.
"Major Henry Blimp" is a reference to Colonel Blimp, a cartoon character
who was created by Sir David Alexander Cecil Low and appeared in
various newspapers around the world in the 1930s, beginning with the
London Evening Standard. Low described Colonel Blimp in this way:
Blimp was no enthusiast for democracy. He was impatient with the
common people and their complaints. His remedy to social unrest was
less education, so that people could not read about slumps. An extreme
isolationist, disliking foreigners (which included Jews, Irish, Scots,
Welsh, and people from the Colonies and Dominions); a man of
violence, approving war. He had no use for the League of Nations nor
for international efforts to prevent wars. In particular he objected to any
economic reorganization of world resources involving changes in the
status quo.
Obviously the Blimp seen here is a younger version who's yet to be
promoted. (Thanks to Rick Lai for correcting my mistake here.) Mark
Coale (of the good 'zine Odessa Steps) points out the film The Life and
Times of Colonel Blimp, which is about a Col. Blimp-like character.
"It'll all be over come Monday morning" is likely a reference to the
expression "It will all be over by Christmas," which many British told
each other in the opening days of World War One. Gabriel Neeb adds
that a young Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was actually
quoted in August 1914 as saying, "Fortunately the whole thing will be
over by Christmas." Mitchell Glavas adds
However, near the beginning of Chapter 9 of WotW, the
narrator's neighbor "was of the opinion that the troops would
be able to capture or to destroy the Martians during the day (i.e.
the Sunday following the first use of the Heat Ray)." Wells also
seems to indicate that people who had not seen the Martians
themselves had an overly optimistic impression of how easily
they would be defeated. Thus while the WW1 reference makes
complete sense, the same sentiments come directly from WotW.
The ever-interesting Martin Linck contributes the following:
What I find interesting is that the troops shown here are
wearing the standard-issue British Home Service uniform, circa
1898. British troops in the Boer War (who spent most of that
conflict being picked off by Boer sharpshooters) wore almost
exactly the same uniform, although in foreign service, a white
pith helmet was worn instead of the black home service helmet
depicted here. I must say, I'm worried by the metal spike
portuding from the helmets; this is, I think, an older style, no
longer in use in our universe in 1898.Very well, so the uniforms
are perfectly consistent with our version of 1898. What about
the rifles? The weapons carried by the soldiers in the diagram
are Lee-Metfords or Lee-Enfields. This was the bolt-action
"magazine rifle" that replaced the venerable Martini-Henry
single-shot in the early 1890's. The Lee-Metford had Metford
rifling, which was adequate for black-powder cartridges; the
Lee-Enfield had Enfield rifling, which was necessary to deal with
the smokeless-powder catridges introduced at around the same
time. Externally, both rifles are identical. By WWI, all British
soldiers carried Lee-Enfields.

Page 17. Panel 2. The "buggering noise and clanging from the
Common" are from Chapter Eight of WotW:
A curious crowd lingered restlessly, people coming and going but the
crowd remaining, both on the Chobham and Horsell bridges. One or two
adventurous souls, it was afterwards found, went into the darkness and
crawled quite near the Martians; but they never returned, for now and
again a light-ray, like the beam of a warship's searchlight swept the
common, and the Heat-Ray was ready to follow. Save for such, that big
area of common was silent and desolate, and the charred bodies lay
about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day. A noise of
hammering from the pit was heard by many people.
Panel 3. In response to my wondering about the significance of the
"NINE" spelled out in matchsticks, Steve Higgins wrote:
The NINE that is spelled out in matchsticks is the answer to a riddle. you
take six matchsticks, line them up like so:
! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! !
Then you hand the person five more matchsticks and say, "add these
five to the six lined up to get nine."
Once they're stumped, you place the matchsticks on top of the others
like so:
!\ ! ! !\ ! !---
! \ ! ! ! \ ! !---
! \! ! ! \! !---
And the riddle is solved. It's a way to pass time in bars when bored.
Hence, they're doing riddles because they're so bored.
Nowie Potenciano adds that he's more familiar with the twenty
matchstick version of this game.
Page 18. Panel 1. The descent of the second cylinder appears in
Chapter Eight of WotW:
A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking,
saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It had
a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer
lightning. This was the second cylinder.

"The New Traveller's Alamanac: Chapter
Two"
aka Alan Moore's attempt to kill me
Page 25. Landed in Philomela's kingdom...
This is a reference to Samuel Gott's Novae Solymae libri sex (1648), in
which Philomela robbed and murdered her guests as described here.
"We passed by the Capa Blanca Isles, where bullfighting occurs, a
beastly sport which some animal-lover really should persuade them to
abandon."
The Capa Blanca Isles appear in Hugh Lofting's The Voyages of Doctor
Dolittle (1923). In that novel Dr. John Dolittle persuaded the bulls to
chase a matador from the slaughter ring and then perform various
tricks, winning the crowd and effecting the abolition of bullfighting.
Dennis Power makes the point that the events of The Voyages of Doctor
Dolittle are set "many years ago," and so bullfighting must have made a
comeback between the time that Dr. Dolittle visited the islands and the
time of Mina's visit. David Goldfarb suggests that Lofting got the name
from Cuban chess champion Jose Raul Capablanca, who won the world
title in 1921.
"Further south was Mayda, Island of the Seven Cities..."
Mayda, Island of the Seven Cities, appears in Washington Irving's The
Alhambra (1832). Mayda is inhabited by the descendants of Portuguese
who fled Portugal in 734 to escape the Moors. Mayda's cathedrals built
of basalt and decorated with many golden ornaments.
"...nor upon Nut Island, though we saw that island's fishermen,
Nutanauts..."
Nut Island and the Nutanauts come from Lucian of Samosata's True
History (2
nd
century C.E.). The True History has accounts of places on
Earth but is notable for being the earliest science fiction space travel
novel.
"East lay the coast of Coromandel, a small independent country on the
edge of Portugal, where was raised the castle of a locally-famed
nobleman, the Yonghi-Bonghi of Bo."
Coromandel and the Yonghi-Bonghi of Bo are from Edward Lear's "The
Courtship of Yonghy-Bonghy-B" (1877), one of Lear's great nonsense
rhymes.
"The Milanese magus Duke Prospero..."
Prospero, revealed in League v2 #1 to have been the leader of the first
League, is from Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611).
"...an Isle called Lanternland..."
Lanternland, and the glowing Lords and Ladies, are from Le Voyage de
navigation que fist Panurge, disciple de Pantagruel, aux isles incognues
et stranges de plusieurs choses merveilleuses et difficiles croire, qu'il
dict avoir veues, dont il fait narration en ce prsent volume, et plusieurs
aultres joyeusetez pour inciter les lecteurs et audietues rire
(Anonymous, 1538), and then again in Franois Rabelais' Le cinquiesme
et dernier livre des faicts et dicts du bon Pantagruel, auquel est contenu
la visitation de l'Oracle de la dive Bacbuc, et le mot de la bouteille; pour
lequel avoir est entrepris tout ce long voyage (Five Books of the Lives,
Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel, 1564).
Gargantua was a giant of medieval Celtic and Gallic legend which
Rabelais adapted for his satirical works, which hold up surprisingly well
as comedy, even today. Philip Cohen says,
That translation is the name given to the collection of all five of
Rabelais's books in the Urquhart and Motteux translation. I can't
find the 1538 book on the Web but the fact that the pays
Lanternois is mentioned in chapters 1, 5, 6, and 8 of the 4th
book, published in short form in 1548, makes me wonder if the
1538 book was by Rabelais hiding from condemnation. Can't find
my dead-tree copy to investigate further. Anyhoo, the
translations of the titles are, roughly: 'The journey that Panurge,
disciple of Pantagruel, made to unknown and strange islands and
several marvelous and hard-to-believe things which he claims to
have seen, of which he tells in this present volume, and several
other jests to incite readers and hearers to laughter' and 'The
fifth and final book of the deeds and sayings of the good
Pantagruel, in which is contained the visit to the Oracle of the
divine Bacbuc, and the word of the bottle, for which this whole
long voyage was undertaken'.

"We found an Isle called Lanternland by some, where great
Demosthenes burned midnight oil, and putting in to shore at my
command upon its soil saw men to glow-worms turned; each Lord and
Lady dressed with glass and gem that caught the shine of wanton
candle-flame. Jewelled crest and diamond hem, blazing they pass, no
two the same, their radiance near divine."
Ryan Laws points out that Prospero's journal is in properly-
Shakespearean iambic pentameter, albeit slightly off the ten-beat line.
The preceding entry can be broken down like so:
We found an Isle called Lanternland by some
Where great Demosthenes burned midnight oil
And putting in to shore at my command
Upon its soil saw men to glow-worms turned;
Each Lord and Lady dressed with glass and gem
That caught the shine of wanton candle-flame.
Jewelled crest and diamond hem, blazing they pass
No two the same, their radiance near divine.
"Not far away an oracle is found; a bottle in a crypt upon an isle where
did sweet Bachus make a vineyard grow. The bottle speaketh with a
cracking sound, and I did like its augurs not at all."
The Oracle in the Bottle is from Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds
and Sayings of Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel.
"...past the Lotus-Eater's land of yellow sand and endless afternoon..."
The Island of the Lotus-Eaters is from Homer's Odyssey (and, as Steve
Higgins points out and which I should have caught, Alfred, Lord
Tennyson's "The Lotos Eaters"). The Lotus Eaters feed on lotus blooms
and in so doing become inured to the concerns of mortals. Lang
Thompson notes that the Lotophagi, lotus eaters, appear in Herodotus,
who said they feed on the fruit, not the blooms. Philip Cohen quibbles
with my use of the word "inured" and prefers "become immune
to" or "forget" or "lose."
"...Ogygia too we passed..."
Ogygia is from Homer's Odyssey. Ogygia was the island on which the
nymph Calypso lived.
"...This ring-shaped island, that is called only 'Her'..."
The island of Her and its silent swan are from Alfred Jarry's Gestes et
Opinions du Docteur Faustroll, Pataphysicien (Gestures and Opinions of
Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician, 1911). Jarry's work is scabrous, foul, and
brilliant; it's hard to say it's about anything, though.
"...a Cyclops is, one of that fearsome breed whereof Odysseus spake..."
In Homer's Odyssey Odysseus outwitted a Cyclops.
"...past the Imaginary Isle..."
The Imaginary Isle is from Anne Marie Louise Henriette d'Orlans,
Duchesse de Montpensier's Rlation de L'Isle Imaginaire (Relation of the
Imaginary Island, 1659). (By Montpensier, unless her husband Jean
Segrais wrote it instead.) L'Isle Imaginaire is a Utopia burlesquing
France.
"...a pois'nous land called the Great Garabagne..."
The Great Garabagne is from Henri Michaux's Voyage en Grande
Garabagne (Voyage to Grand Garabagne, 1936); Great Garabagne is a
land where each traveller meets his own monsters and despairs.
"Next we came to Aiolio..."
Aiolio appears in Homer's Odyssey. Aiolos Hippotades is the King of the
Winds and keeps violent winds in ox-skin sacks.
"...the mountain Animas raised up near Soria, where once Knights
Templar walked."
The mountain Animas, aka Monte de las Animas, aka Mountain of the
Spirits, appears in Gustavo Becquer's "El Monte de las nimas" (The
Mountain of the Spirits, 1871). The Monte de las Animas was a former
stronghold of the Templars before the Castilians slaughtered the
Knights.
"Beyond the straits verdant Anostus lay..."
Anostus appears in Claudius Aelianus' Varia Historia (2
nd
century C.E.).
"Portugal has the republic of Andorra..."
Andorra (the fictional concept, not the country) is from Max Frisch's
Andorra (1961), about a violently pro-Christian and anti-Semitic country
in the Pyrenees.
"More interestingly, in Spain's La Mancha provice, is the landbound
island, Barataria, where twenty years before Prospero's voyage a squire
named Sancho Panza ruled, albeit only for a week. Not far from
Barataria we find a grotto, Montesinos' Cave, the sole account of which
is that of Panza's master, Don Quixote..."
La Mancha, Barataria, Sancho Panza, Montesino's Cave, and Don
Quixote are all from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's El ingenioso
hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha (The Ingenious Noble, Don Quixote
de la Mancha, 1605-1615).
Page 26. "...the tomb of the hero Durandarte..."
Although the tomb of Durandarte appears in Don Quixote de La Mancha,
Durandarte is part of medieval Spanish myth, and was supposedly killed
at the Battle of Roncesvalles; for more information, read Le Chanson de
Roland.
...the willfully eccentric country Exopotomania...
Exopotomania appears in Boris Vian's L'Automne Pkin (The Fall of
Peking, 1956), a novel about a desert Utopia.
"Further east is Andrographia..."
Andrographia is from Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne's
L'Andrographe ou ides d'un honnte homme sur un projet de
rglement propos toutes les nations de l'Europe pour oprer une
rforme gnrale des moeurs, et par elle, le bonheur du genre humain
avec des notes historiques et justificatives (The andrographe or ideas of
an honest man on a regulation project proposed to all the Europe
nations to operate a general reformation of the morals, and by her, the
happiness of the mankind with historic and supporting grades, 1782). de
la Bretonne was a French author who wrote a little bit of science fiction,
a lot of pornography, and still more rubbish. I'll leave it to you to guess
which category this book falls into. Philip Cohen says that this is a
better translation: "Better: The andrographer, or ideas of an
honest man on a scheme of regulations proposed to all the
nations of Europe to produce a general reform of morality and
thereby the happiness of mankind, with historical and supporting
notes."
"...the iron-clad castle of the 16th century sorcerer Atlante..."
Atlante's castle appears in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1516),
one of the great medieval epics.
"Next comes a Pyrenean city that apparently cannot be named for
reasons of what is puzzlingly described as 'theological security.' Its
southern half contains a mansion, Triste-le-Roy, reached by committing
murders at the three points of a mystic triangle..."
The city which cannot be named, and the mansion Triste-le-Roy, are
from Jorge Luis Borges' "La Muerte y la brjula" (Death and the
compass, 1956).
"...we pass the garrulous land of Auspasia..."
Auspasia, the noisiest and most talkative nation in the world, appears in
Georges Duhamel's Lettres d'Auspasie (Letters from Auspasia, 1922)
and La dernier voyage de Candide (The Last Voyage of Candide, 1938).
"...to reach Bengodi..."
Bengodi, and its Parmesan cheese, appear in Giovanni Boccaccio's
Decameron (1353), a very influential collection of Italian stories, some
of which were later used by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales.
"...there are also gemstones unique to Bengodi, including an invisibility-
bestowing heliotrope used in the first experiments of Hawley Griffin."
The heliotrope has traditionally been seen as an item which grants
invisibility. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines the
heliotrope as
Apollo loved Clytie, but forsook her for her sister Leucothoe. On
discovering this, Clytie pined away; and Apollo changed her at death to
a flower, which, always turning towards the sun, is called heliotrope.
(Greek, "turn-to-sun.")
According to the poets, heliotrope renders the bearer invisible.
Boccaccio calls it a stone, but Solinus says it is the herb. "Ut herba
ejusdem nominis mixta et prcantationibus legitimis conscecrata, eum,
a quocunque gestabitur, subtrahat visibus obviorum." (Georgic, xi.)
Philip Cohen says,
For those with less Latin than Brewer expected of his readers,
this means something like 'So the herb of the same name,
brewed and consecrated with the proper incantations, removes
whoever it is carried by from the sight of passersby.'
"No hope had they of crevice where to hide,
Or heliotrope to charm them out of view."
Dante: Inferno, xxiv.
In Novel iii of the Eighth Day of the Decameron the heliotrope is
described as "a kind of stone in the Mugnone which renders whoso
carries it invisible to every other soul in the world."
In Wells' Invisible Man there is no evidence of a heliotrope in Griffin's
first experiments (although Griffin surely qualifies as an unreliable
narrator). By his own account, he discovered invisibility in this way:
I will tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicated processes. We
need not go into that now. For the most part, saving certain gaps I
chose to remember, they are written in cypher in those books that
tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We must get those books
again. But the essential phase was to place the transparent object
whose refractive index was to be lowered between two radiating centres
of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which I will tell you more fully later.
No, not these Rntgen vibrations--I don't know that these others of
mine have been described. Yet they are obvious enough. I needed two
little dynamos, and these I worked with a cheap gas engine.
JoeyBags notes, "While it's true that there's no evidence of heliotrope in
the novel, for some reason Heliotrope is a major ingredent in Universal's
The Invisible Man, directed by James Whale and starring Claude Rains
(1933)."
"...close to the Balearic Islands is Trypheme..."
Tryphme appears in Pierre Louys's Les Aventures du Roi Pausole (The
Adventures of King Pausole, 1900). In the novel Tryphme operates
much as described here.
"North, within French territory, is Papafiguiera..."
Papafiguiera, or Papefiguiera, is from Broualde de Verville's Le Moyen
de parvenir. Oeuvre contenant la raison de tout ce qui a est, est, et
sera, avec dmonstrations certaines et ncessaires selon la rencontre
des effets de vertu (The Means to reach. Work containing the reason of
all this that has been, is, and will be, with certain and necessary
demonstrations according to the encounter of the virtue effects, 1610).
Le Moyen de Parvenir was one of a number of late Renaissance French
menippean satires. Philip Cohen says
Better: 'The way to succeed. A work containing the reason for
everything that was, is, and will be, with sure and necessary
proofs according to the encounter of the effects of virtue.' Both
translations seem to be missing some point starting with
'according to' but I can't figure out anything better.
"These include Ptyx, Bran Isle..."
Ptyx and Bran Isle both appear in Alfred Jarry's Gestes et Opinions du
Docteur Faustroll, Pataphysicien.
"...Clerkship..."
The island of Clerkship appears in Franois Rabelais' Le quart livre des
faicts et dicts du bon Pantagruel (1552).
"...Laceland..."
Laceland is from Alfred Jarry's Gestes et Opinions du Docteur Faustroll,
Pataphysicien.
"...Leaveheavenalone..."
The island of Leaveheavenalone is from Charles Kingsley's The Water
Babies (1863).
"...Breadlessday..."
Breadlessday appears in Franois Rabelais' Le cinquiesme et dernier
livre des faicts et dicts du bon Pantagruel.
"Amorphous Island..."
Amorphous Island appears in Alfred Jarry's Gestes et Opinions du
Docteur Faustroll, Pataphysicien.
"Ruach, the 'Windy Island'..."
Ruach appears in Franois Rabelais' Le quart livre des faicts et dicts du
bon Pantagruel.
"In between are Cyril Island (a self-propelled volcano that is currently
the home of Captain Kidd)..."
Cyril Island is from Alfred Jarry's Gestes et Opinions du Docteur
Faustroll, Pataphysicien. In the novel the island is the home of Captain
Kidd.
"...the Fortunate Islands (which include the Isle of Butterflies..."
The Fortunate Islands and the Isle of Butterflies are from Le Voyage de
navigation que fist Panurge, disciple de Pantagruel.
"...Fragrant Island..."
Fragrant Island is from Alfred Jarry's Gestes et Opinions du Docteur
Faustroll, Pataphysicien.
"...the pie-island Pastemolle..."
Pastemolle appears in Le Voyage de navigation que fist Panurge, disciple
de Pantagruel.
"...Thermometer Island..."
Thermometer Island appears in Denis Diderot's Les Bijoux Indiscrets
(The Indiscreet Jewels, 1748). Diderot, the famous encyclopedist and
philosopher, also wrote erotica, which Les Bijoux Indiscrets is.
"...the flower-carpeted peninsula of Flora..."
Flora appears in Ferdinand Raimund's "Die gefesselte Phantasie" (The
Bound Imagination, 1837), a dramatic fairytale.
"North is Lubec, a town in south Provence founded by colonists from
Thermometer Island, with all the genital peculiarities so common in that
place."
Lubec is from Broualde de Verville's Le Moyen de parvenir. There is no
textual link between de Verville's work and Diderot's. In Lubec, as
mentioned, the genitalia of men are removed and stored in the Town
Hall. On Thermometer Island the genitalia of men and women are
peculiarly and geometrically shaped, but not removed.
"Trinquelage..."
The castle of Trinquelage appears in Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon
moulin (Letters from my mill, 1866), a collection of mostly-humorous
stories about Daudet's native Provence.
"...to the west is Nameless Castle..."
Nameless Castle is from Denis Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son
matre (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master, 1796), a comedy about a
servant and the man he served.
"...the kingdom of Poictesme, guarded by the Fellows of the Silver
Stallion."
Poictesme appears in the works of James Branch Cabell, most notably
Jurgen (1919), in which the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion appears.
Jurgen is a brilliant satirical comedy set in a fantasy Europe.
"A like-named group exists in modern Nimes..."
I am unaware of another Fellowship of the Silver Stallion aside from
Cabell's.
"Further west, in what is now Auvergne, we have a medieval province
that shared borders with Poictesme, known as Averoigne."
Averoigne is from the outstanding stories of Clark Ashton Smith, among
which was "A Rendezvous in Averoigne" (1931). Smith is a criminally-
underrated fantasy writer, with Averoigne being one of the locations of
his stories.
"...the subterranean Grande Euscarie..."
Grande Euscarie appears in Luc Alberny's Le Mammoth Bleu (The Blue
Mammoth, 1935).
"...where the buried kingdoms of the Fatipuffs and Thinnifers are found."
The kingdoms of the Fattipuffs and the Thinnifers appear in Andr
Maurois' Patapoufs et Filifers (1930), one of Maurois' juvenalia.
"...we find Baron Hugh's Castle..."
Baron Hugh's Castle appears in the 1942 film Les Visiteurs du soir (The
Visitors in the Evening), a romance about two minstrels sent by the
Devil to tempt the desperate and unswary. David Cairns noted that Les
Visiteurs du soir was written by Jacques Prevert and that "French
audiences at the time took the still-beating hearts of the statues to be a
symbol of the heart of France under the Nazi occupation. This
symbolism, not consciously intended by Prevert, escaped the Nazi
censors."
"...the modest and agrarian republic Calejava, founded by one Dr. Ava
in the 1600s upon communitarian ideals, described by Mina Murray in
her journal notes as 'scrupulously fair; screamingly dull.'"
Calejava and Dr. Ava are from Claude Gilbert's Histoire de Calejava ou
de l'Ilse des Hommes Raisonnables, avec le Paralelle de leur Morale et
du Christianisme (History of Calejava or the Island of Reasonable Men,
with the Parallel of their Morals and Christianity, 1700). The reason that
Mina finds Calejava so dull is that there are no forms at all of
entertainment in Calejava, it being a communitarian, work-oriented
Utopia. Philip Cohen again corrects me, or rather the source I
used: "Histoire de Calejava, ou de l'isle [n.b.] des hommes
raisonnables, avec le parallle [n.b.] de leur morale et du
christianisme."
"...the sunken city Belesbat..."
Murderous Belesbat appears in Claire Kenin's La Mer mystrieuse (The
Mysterious Sea, 1923).
"...a separate sunken city (named by its discoverers as, simply,
'Disappeared')..."
The sunken city of Disappeared appears in Victor Hugo's "La Ville
disparue" (The Disappeared City, 1859).
"...the Atlantean colony, Atlanteja..."
Atlanteja appears in Luigi Motta's Il tunnel sottomarino (The Undersea
Tunnel, 1927).
"...outposts of the Streaming Kingdom..."
The Streaming Kingdom, mentioned in the Almanac in League v2 #1,
appeared in Jules Superveille's L'enfant de la haute mers (1931).
"...we passed above Le Douar..."
Le Douar appeared in J.H. Rosny (jeune)'s L'Enigme du "Redoutable"
(The Enigma of the "Redoubtable," 1930).
Page 27. ...we saw the Isle of Boredom...
The Island of Boredom appears in Marie Anne de Roumier Robert's Les
Ondins (The Water Sprites, 1768), a voyage imaginaire.
"...we saw Magic Maiden's Rock..."
Magic Maiden's Rock appears in Vasco de Lobeira's Amadis de Gaula
(Amadis of Gaul, 1350-1508), one of the greatest of the Iberian epics
and the work responsible for Don Quixote's madness.
"...we passed Realism Island..."
Realism Island is from G.K. Chesterton's "Introductory: On Gargoyles"
(1910), Chesterton's screed against Realism in art ("realism is simply
Romanticism that has lost its reason").
"We carried on past Cork (not Cork in Ireland, obviously) that Lucian
described."
The island of Cork appears in Lucian of Samosata's True History.
"The first is Alca, where the native penguins were transformed to
humans by the Angel Gabriel..."
The island of Alca appeared in Daniel Defoe's The Further Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe, Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, or, A New Voyage Round the World, by
a course never sailed before. Being a voyage undertaken by some
Merchants, who afterwards proposed the Setting up an East-India
Company in Flanders (1724). This was Defoe's sequel to Robinson
Crusoe. Shawn Garrett notes that the story of the Angel Gabriel and the
penguins is from Anatole France's L'Ile des pingouins (Penguin Island,
1908), which made use of Alca from Defoe's sequel.
"...the former Isle of Asbefore, once part of an archipelago, with its
fellow islands (Farapart, Jumptoit, Incognito) now seemingly sunken;
Asbefore has known only one incident of interest, this being a
successfully repelled invasion by a group of turkey hunters from the
town of Bang-Bang-Turkey..."
The islands of Asbefore, Farapart, Jumptoit, and Incognito and the city
of Bang-Bang-Turkey all appear in Jacques Prvert's Lettre des les
Baladar (Letter from the Baladar Islands, 1952), one of his books for
children.
"...the mouth of the Atlantic tunnel..."
The trans-Atlantic tunnel appeared in Luigi Motta's Il tunnel sottomarino.
"Further inland is Broceliande forest..."
Brocliande forest appeared in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Idylls of the
King" (1842-1845), the classic poetic take on Arthurian myth.
"Next we reach Banoic..."
Banoic, aka Benwick, was a part of Arthurian myth.
"...this area was subsumed in the Hurlubierean Empire..."
The empire of Hurlubiere appeared in Charles Nodier's Hurlubleu, Grand
Manifafa d'Hurlubiere (1822), a satire of philosophy.
"...is the proposed site of the city Morphopolis..."
Morphopolis (not 'Morphiopolis;' thanks to Marc Madouraud for the
correction) appeared in Maurice Barrre's La Cit du sommeil (The City
of Sleep, 1909, not 1929 as I originally had it; thanks to Marc
Madouraud for the correction). The site is "proposed" because the
events of La Cit du sommeil take place in 1950, and the The New
Traveller's Almanac was written before that (thanks to Ryan Laws for
correcting my mistake here).
"...the eight-sided Abbey of Theleme..."
The Abbey appeared in Franois Rabelais' La Vie trs horrifique du grand
Gargantua (The Very Horrific Life of the Great Gargantua, 1534). David
Goldfarb, among others, noted that Aleister Crowley took "Do as you
will" from Rabelais, and that "his followers sometimes use the term
'thelemic' to describe themselves."
"...the giant Gargantua, who, amongst other things, provided Paris with
its name during the 16th century, when he discharged the contents of
his massive bladder. The luckless citizens were washed away or
drowned by a great flood of urine that poured steaming from the much-
relieved colossus, who, when he viewed the destruction his emission had
provoked, could not contain his mirth. At this, those who'd survived the
deluge angrily cried, 'Look! He's drowned us par ris (for a laugh),' with
the unlucky city known as Paris ever after."
This event occurred in Franois Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel
(1532). In Chapter XVII of the First Book we read:
And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to rest
himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At which place, seeing so
many about him, he said with a loud voice, I believe that these buzzards
will have me to pay them here my welcome hither, and my Proficiat. It
is but good reason. I will now give them their wine, but it shall be only
in sport. Then smiling, he untied his fair braguette, and drawing out his
mentul into the open air, he so bitterly all-to-bepissed them, that he
drowned two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen,
besides the women and little children. Some, nevertheless, of the
company escaped this piss-flood by mere speed of foot, who, when they
were at the higher end of the university, sweating, coughing, spitting,
and out of breath, they began to swear and curse, some in good hot
earnest, and others in jest. Carimari, carimara: golynoly, golynolo. By
my sweet Sanctess, we are washed in sport, a sport truly to laugh at;--
in French, Par ris, for which that city hath been ever since called.
"...such as the Amran period, when France was Aquilonia and was ruled
briefly by a Swedish warrior-king named Amra, though some suggest
this was a nickname meaning 'lion' or 'lionheart.'"
Amra, Aquilonia, and the Swedish warrior-king are all from the works of
Robert E. Howard. The "Swedish warrior-king" is Conan, who gained the
name "Amra," or "the lion," while pirating with the Shemitish she-devil
Blit.
"...the cruel Melnibonean empire, these remains including the corroded
hilt of a black sword..."
The Melnibonean empire and the black sword are from the Elric of
Melnibone books of Michael Moorcock. The black sword is Stormbringer,
the soul-sucking blade of Elric. J. Keith Haney says,
There is a significance to only the hilt of Stormbringer being
found by archeologists. You may recall from the ending of the
novel of the same name that after slaying its master, Elric,
Stormbringer assumed its true form and went flying off into the
new cosmos they had created together. Apparently, it must have
just been the blade itself and not the whole sword, hence the hilt
being left behind.
"Like most French cities, Paris has its own 'Parthenion Town,' bordello
districts with permitted, regulated prostitution."
Parthenion Town is from Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne's Le
Pornographe, ou ides d'un Honnte homme sur un projet de rglement
pour les prostituees (The Pornographer, or Ideas of an Honest man for a
Regulation Project for the Prostitutes, 1769). Jrme Wicky notes that
Restif is commonly credited as the creator of the term "pornographer"
and/or "pornography." Philip Cohen says, "As with Andrographer,
the translation of 'projet de rglement' seems strained and I
would again propose something like 'scheme of regulation for
prostitutes'."
"Less graspable is Neverreachhereland..."
Neverreachhereland appeared in Andr Dhtel's Les Pays o l'on n'arrive
jamais (The Country One Never Reaches, 1955).
"Beneath the city's Opera House exist the caves where in 1911 the
deranged and hideous 'Phantom' carried out his crimes."
The Opera House and the Phantom appear in Gaston Leroux's The
Phantom of the Opera (1911). Jean-Marc Lofficier points out the events
of Phantom take place in the 1880s, not 1911.
"In 1913, Mina Murray and her second extraordinary league..."
An obvious hint about the future of the League, here.
"...their French counterparts Les Hommes Mysterieux..."
French popular fiction is filled with characters who would easily qualify
for a French League. For more information on them, see Jean-Marc
Lofficier's excellent Cool French Comics site and his outstanding French
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction.
"...aeronaut Jean Robur..."
Robur, mentioned in passing in the first League series, is the hero of
Jules Verne's The Clipper of the Clouds (1887) and then the villain of
The Master of the World (1904). I have information on Robur on my
Fantastic Victoriana site.
"...the frightening night-sighted Nyctalope..."
The Nyctalope was created by "Jean de La Hire," aka Adolphe d'Espie De
La Hire, and appeared in a series of books from 1908 through the mid-
1950s, beginning with L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre Dans L'Eau (The Man
Who Could Live in the Water, 1908). The Nyctalope was the first real
super-hero of French pulp literature, having super-powers (he could see
in the dark and had an artificial heart) and a group of faithful assistants.
For more information on the Nyctalope, see Jean-Marc Lofficier's
excellent Nyctalope page.
"...just prior to A.J. shooting him..."
As a number of people (including Kevin Mowery, Andrew J. Brook, and
Stu Shiffman) pointed out, I originally made an error in conflating "A.J."
with Mina's lover "A." A.J. is in all likelihood E.W. Hornung's gentleman
thief A.J. Raffles. Jeff Meyer adds that he thinks "Quatermain may have
pulled the time-honored trick of immortals everywhere, faking his own
death and masquerading as his own son. Thus, 'A.J.' stands for 'Alan,
Jr.'"
"...their disputed 'Jean Valjean' graffiti..."
Jean Valjean is of course from Victor Hugo's Les Misrables (1862).
JoeyBags corrects me and points out that Jean Valjean was the
character's real name in Les Misrables.
"..the Graveyard of Unwritten Books, in chambers under the Hotel de
Sens..."
The Graveyard of Unwritten Books beneath the Htel de Sens was
created by the Turkish writer Nedim Grsel and appeared in Son
Tramway (His Tram, 1900). The Graveyard, also known as the "Well of
Locks," is the home of all books forbidden by authorities across the
world.
"...just outside Paris lies Lofoten Cemetery, with its crows grown fat on
human flesh and its reported spectres."
Lofoten Cemetery appears in the Symbolist poet Oscar Venceslas de
Lubicz Milosz's Les Sept solitudes, pomes (The Seven Solitudes,
Poems, 1906). The crows of Lofoten feed on the cold flesh of the
recently dead and have grown quite fat on this diet. The spectres are of
the dead, who are, according to some, less dead than some famous
living people.
"Nearby there is Montmorency, where the scientist Martial Canterel
maintains his villa, Locus Solus, with its many wonderful inventions."
Martial Canterel and Locus Solus are from Raymond Roussel's Locus
Solus (1914). Canterel is an inventor and scientist who creates several
remarkable inventions, including two formulae for resurrecting corpses.
"Les Hommes Mysterieux"
See Page 28, below.
Page 28. Also near Paris is the city Fluorescente, built on avant-garde
philosophies.
Fluorescente was created by noted Dadaist Tristan Tzara and appeared
in Grains et Issues (Grains and Exits, 1935).
"...yet another subterranean site, this being the notorious Suicide City.
This dismal refuge of the world's failed suicides was found during 1912
Police investigations of an underground rail line between Bastille and
Vincennes, and was allegedly founded by survivors of London's
notorious Suicide Club, disbanded 1882."
Suicide City appeared in Jos Muoz Escamez's La Ciudad de los
Suicidas (The City of the Suicides, 1912); Escamez wrote the novel as
an informal sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club"
(1882).
"...we come to Etretat and Hollow Needle, cave-lair of Arsene Lupin."
The Hollow Needle is a naturally-formed cave which Arsne Lupin used
in Maurice LeBlanc's L'Aiguille Creuse (The Hollow Needle, 1909). Lupin,
created by LeBlanc, is the foremost example of the gentleman thief; for
more information on him, see Jean-Marc Lofficier's excellent Arsne
Lupin page. Jean Rogers adds
in fact the Aiguille is the huge rock off the cliffs at Etretat
(There's a clear picture at
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/bernard.langellier/htenorm/htenorm.h
tm). Lupin's lair, as described in the book entitled L'Aiguille
Creuse, is a cave within this rock, reached by a tunnel from the
town, passing under the sea. This is much more dramatic than
the Almanac makes it sound...
"As with his rival Fantomas..."
Fantmas, the Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil, was created by Pierre
Souvestre and Marcel Allain in a series of stories that appeared in a
monthly in 1911; they were later gathered together in Fantmas
(1911), with numerous sequels appearing. Fantmas is a brilliant and
utterly ruthless Parisian crime lord whose crimes are ingenious in their
evil. For more information on Fantmas, see the Jean-Marc Lofficier's
Fantmas site and the Fantmas Lives! site.
So, for those who care about such things, the 1913 line-up of Les
Hommes Mysterieux, seen in the illustration at the bottom of Page 27,
consists of Jean Robur, the Nyctalope, Arsne Lupin, Fantmas, and
"several others." Who is who in that illustration, however, is another
matter. I think that the man in the lead is Jean Robur. Next to him is
the tuxedo-wearing individual, and while Lupin is customarily portrayed
in a tuxedo the definitive Fantmas image shows the Lord of Terror in a
tuxedo. The seated individual with the odd helmet and goggles is, I
think, Nyctalope, but given Fantmas' faceless nature in his novels this
could be Fantmas instead. That leaves the fourth, bearded individual,
to the rear of the boat, which could be Fantmas or the Nyctalope.
Damian Gordon has an interesting comparison between Les Hommes
Mysterieux to the League; he also notes that since Lupin is traditionally
shown wearing a monocle, and that the tuxedo-wearing individual seen
here has a monocle, the identification of the man in the tuxedo with
Lupin is correct, which makes the character in the rear Fantmas. Marc
Madouraud sends along a note which clears up the question of who is
who in this picture. The fourth character, in the rear of the boat, is not
Fantmas, but rather the Phantom of the Opera; what I took to be a
bearded face is actually a mask, which as Marc notes is the exact same
mask which Claude Rains wore in the 1943 Arthur Lupin version of
Phantom.
Thanks to Jean-Marc Lofficier I can tell you that the creepy
pumpkinheaded floppy-armed imp seen running along the edge of the
sewer, in the illustration at the bottom of Page 27, is a Martian from
Arnould Galopin's Le Docteur Omga - Aventures Fantastiques de Trois
Franais dans la Plante Mars (Dr. Omega - Fantastic Adventures Of
Three Frenchmen On Planet Mars, 1905). Le Docteur Omga (a book,
not a magazine, as I had it; thanks to Marc Madouraud for the
correction) was about Doctor Omega, an inventor-adventurer, who goes
to Mars and fights various Martians, some of whom are quite like the
one seen here. I have slightly more information on Dr. Omega on the
French Heroes section of my Pulp Heroes site, and Jean-Marc Lofficier
has still more information in his magisterial French Science Fiction,
Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction. According to Jean-Marc, who spoke
directly to Kevin O'Neill, O'Neill put in the Martian because he liked its
look; there's "no hidden story agenda there."
"Further north is Quiquendone, on the Escaut in Flanders, where in 1870
a deranged engineer named Dr. Ox turned townsfolk into violent beasts
with side effects from gas-lighting experiments."
Quiquendone and Dr. Ox are from Jules Verne's Une Fantasie du
Docteur Ox (A Fantasy of Dr. Ox, 1874). Quiquendone was the location
Dr. Ox chose in which to install a modernized lighting system, with
unfortunate results.
"Dr. Ox, believed dead, was in fact admitted to a nearby township,
Expiation City, built for purposes of ethical atonement and said to have
aided in the rehabilitation of various master villains."
Expiation City appeared in P.S. Ballanches' La Ville des expiations (The
City of Expiations, 1907). In the novel Expiation City is a dictatorship
created for the sole purpose of social re-education and the atonement of
moral and spiritual weaknesses. Unfortunately the novel contains no
mention of specific master villains who have sought expiation.
"North, the castle of the murderer Bluebeard stood..."
Bluebeard and his castle appeared in Charles Perrault's "La Barbe Bleue"
(The Blue Beard, 1697); the story of Bluebeard is that he would take a
young wife and eventually murder her, with Bluebeard's last wife
discovering this awful fact and seeing to Bluebeard's death.
"...further south was the retreat of the deformed noble called 'The
Beast.'"
The Beast, of the legend (then novel, then film, then animated
treatment) of Beauty and the Beast, was created by Mme Marie Leprince
de Beaumont and appeared in "La Belle et La Bte" (The Beauty and the
Beast, 1757).
"Eastwards lie two demolished fortresses, one home to an inbred Royal
family cursed by cataleptic fits, with lovely Princess Rosamund as the
most famous sufferer."
"Princess Rosamund" is better known as "Princess Rosamond," or
"Sleeping Beauty." I think Moore is also bringing in George MacDonald's
The Wise Woman, a Parable (1875), which has a similarly sleep-prone
Princess Rosamond.
"The other fort, Carabas Castle, had been previously called Ogre Castle
until the ogre was provoked into transforming into a mouse and
promptly eaten by a talking feline dressed in striking footwear."
Carabas Castle appeared in Charles Perrault's "Le Matre Chat ou Le
Chat Bott" (The Master Cat or the Boot-Wearing Cat, 1697). The ogre
was taunted into this transformation by the talking feline in striking
footwear, aka Puss-in-Boots.
"...alleged to have been made by Merlin for the great knight Tristan.
Called the Fountain of Love..."
Tristan and Merlin are part of the Arthurian myth cycle as well as the
legends of Tristan et Yseult (aka Tristan and Isolde). I am unaware of a
specific Fountain of Love or River of Love in those myths and legends,
however. Matthew Baugh notes that in Gottfried von Straussberg's
Tristan, the pair of lovers, fleeing from King Mark, take refuge in a
hidden grotto, the Cave of Lovers, which has a brook of pure water in it.
Lang Thompson wonders if this is "a reference to Maeterlinck's (& then
Debussy's) Pelleas et Melisande which is a variant of Tristan & Iseult and
features a key scene with Melisande at a fountain." Jean Rogers adds
none of the explanations offered is really satisfying, but I can't
do any better. I think it must be a late development; the Tristan
story was originally independent of the Arthurian material, and
the earliest connection brings Arthur into the story as an
independent outsider. Gottfried von Strassburg (that's the
spelling in my - Penguin - edition) describes a spring flowing
through a glade "somewhat apart" from the Cave of Lovers,
which really doesn't match the description at all.
"Xiros, further east, is a notoriously haunting land..."
Xiros was created by Jorge Luis Borges and appeared in "El Zahir"
(1949).
"Westward, Devil's Island was ruled by the giant Bandaguido, with his
daughter Bandaguida and their child, until the dynasty was overthrown
in the 3
rd
century A.D."
Devil's Island, Bandaguido, and Bandaguida are from Amadis of Gaul
(1508).
"Nearby is Abdera, famous for its devotion to the horse..."
Abdera is a part of traditional Greek and Latin myth, appearing in
(among other places) the Physiologus Latinus (4
th
century B.C.E.).
"Lemuel Gulliver's margin-notes conjecture that the banished intellectual
horses of Abdera may have sired the Houyhnhms..."
The talking horse Houyhnhms appeared in Jonathan Swift's Travels into
Several Remote Nations of the World. in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver,
First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships (1726).
"...we find the ruins of the morbid city Ptolemais, bordered by the
Charonian Canal..."
Ptolemais and the Charonian Canal appear in Edgar Allan Poe's
"Shadow: A Parable" (1845), one of Poe's shorter and creepier works.
"...while over Phlegra are the floating remnants of the avian citadel
Cloudcuckooland, founded by Pesithetaerus in 400 B.C."
Cloudcuckooland and Pesithetaerus appeared in Aristophanes' The Birds
(414 B.C.E.). Pesithetaerus was an Athenian who founded the floating
fortress Cloudcuckooland. It was intended to be a keep for birds of all
species, but they ended up using it to starve the gods into submission
and lay claim to rulership over the world.
"Westwards are still more islands. Aiaia, Circe's island, is amongst the
most well-known, along with Scylla and Charybdis (now without their
monstrous dwellers) and the Wandering Rocks, a group of now-
unmoving islands that were said once to have clashed togehter, as
remarked on by Captains Ulysses and Jason. Also popular is Siren
Island..."
All of these are from Greek myths.
"Not far off, the volcanic isle Pyrallis..."
Pyrallis appears in Pliny the Elder's Inventorum Natura (Natural History,
1
st
century C.E.).
"Below Mediterranean waters we find the Arabian Tunnel leading to the
Red Sea, its existence proved by Nemo, Sikh submariner, who released
marked fish in the Gulf of Suez, these fish later turning up near Syria."
The Arabian Tunnel, Nemo, and the experiment with marked fish are all
from Jules Verne's Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea, 1870).
"The tunnel's length comes close to intersecting with another shaft, this
being the Arcadian Tunnel linking Greece with Italy, once said to be the
haunt of satyrs and reserved for bitterly unhappy lovers..."
The Arcadian Tunnel first appeared in Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia
(1501), a pastoral idyll.
"...we're near the Straits of Otranto and the castle of the same name,
empty since the 18th century, when it was plagued by apparitions,
which included a giant helmet covered with black plumage."
The Castle of Otranto appeared appeared in Horace Walpole's The Castle
of Otranto (1765), one of the greatest of the Gothic novels.
"Further north is Portiuncula..."
Portiuncula, where visitors go to recapture something lost in their past,
appeared in Stefan Andres' Die Reise nach Portiuncula (The Trip to
Portiuncula, 1954).
"...while under Italy we find Meloria Canal..."
Meloria Canal is from Emilio Salgari's I naviganti della Meloria (The
Seamen of Meloria, 1903).
"Across Italy rotted webs of string are found, complex and covering
several acres, remnants of the mobile town Ersilia..."
Ersilia is from Italo Calvino's Le citt invisibili (The Invisible Cities,
1972).
Page 29. In Torelore on Italy's west coast...
Torelore appears in Aucassin et Nicolette (Aucassin and Nicolette, 14th
century C.E.), one of the greatest of all medieval romances.
"Islands nearby include the one where Prospero, his daughter and his
spirits dwelled in 1600."
Prospero and his island are from Shakespeare's The Tempest.
"Ennasin Island, close to Sicily..."
Ennasin Island is from Franois Rabelais' Le quart livre des faicts et dicts
du bon Pantagruel.
"...while nearby lie the industrious island of the Busy Bees..."
The island of the Busy Bees is from Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of
Pinocchio (1883).
"...the Island of the Day Before..."
The Island of the Day Before appears in Umberto Eco's The Island of the
Day Before (1994). Kieran Cowan points out that
The island of the Day Before can't be the one in the Umberto Eco
novel. THAT Island is in the middle of the Pacific, it isn't anywhere
NEAR Italy. The whole point of the title is that the stranded mariner's
ship is trapped just on the other side of what is now the International
Date Line. It is LITERALLY the Island of the Day Before, as well as
symbolically.
"Back on the mainland, in the Apennines we find the ruined Abbey of the
Rose..."
The Abbey of the Rose is from Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose
(1980).
"...and the ill-famed Castle of Udolpho..."
The Castle of Udolpho is from Mrs. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of
Udolpho (1794), one of the greatest of all Gothic novels.
"...the hill-top town of Pocapaglia..."
Pocapaglia appears in Fiabe Italiane (Italian Fables, compiled by Italo
Calvino, as Philip Cohen says, 1956).
"...Switzerland and prosperous Goldenthal..."
The fictional places of Switzerland and Goldenthal appear in Johann
Heinrich Daniel Zschokke's Das Goldmacherdorf (The Village of the Gold
Maker, 1817), a fairy tale which was influential in the German
dorfgeschichte (Village Stories) movement of the 1840s.
"...the snow-swept realm of King Astralgus and his alpine spirits..."
The realm of King Astralgus (or Astragalus) appears in Ferdinand
Raimund's Der Alpenknig und der Menschenfeind (The Mountain King
and the Misanthrope, 1928), a comedic fairy-tale play.
"While south upon the Austrian border is the Balbrigian and
Bouloulabassian United Republic..."
The Balbrigian and Bouloulabassian United Republic appears in Max
Jacob's Histoire du roi Kaboul I
er
et du marmiton Gauwain (The History
of King Kaboul the 1st and the Marmiton Gauwain, 1903), a Symbolist
fairy-tale.
"...perhaps the smallest and most socially retarded country in the world,
the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, founded in the 17th century by Sir Roger
Fenwick, his insufferable Englishness preserved in both the Duchy's
language and its customs. European commentators, while surprised by
Grand Fenwick's continuing survival, feel the Duchy will hang on as long
as it doesn't do anything ridiculous such as declaring war on the United
States."
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick appears in Leonard Wibberley's The Mouse
that Roared (1954); in that novel Grand Fenwick, bankrupted by cheap
California wine, declares war on the United States in the hope that
reparation funds from the U.S. would save Grand Fenwick. Henry
Spencer notes that there were several sequels to The Mouse that
Roared.
"Fenwick should not be confused with the nearby Grand Duchy..."
The Grand Duchy first appeared in E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Der Goldene
Topf" (The Golden Pot, 1814) but was featured in several of Hoffmann's
works. "The Golden Pot" is about the war for the soul of a hapless young
student.
"Zaches came from the alpine village of Weng..."
Although Zaches appeared in Hoffmann's "Der Goldene Topf," Weng is
from Thomas Bernhard's Frost (1963); the textual link between the two
is Moore's invention.
"...west of Munich lies delightful woodland where our coachman said a
place known as 'The Wood Between the Worlds' was sometimes
found..."
The Wood Between the Worlds is from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Sudden
Light" (1870) and C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew (1955).
"Nearby stood Runenberg..."
Runenberg is from Ludwig Tieck's "Der Runenberg" (1804), a fable
about a young man who ventures too far on to a mountain and meets
the faerie Woodwoman.
"...our eventual destination, Horselberg..."
Horselberg, aka Venusberg, is from Richard Wagner's Tannhuser
(1845), although the more erotic/pornographic elements were added by
Aubrey Beardsley in his Under the Hill (1897).
"I much preferred to witness how Queen Venus makes her unicorn
Adolphe sing each morning..."
For the insatiably curious, Queen Venus masturbates Adolphe.
"...we find the remarkable city of holes, Cittabella..."
Cittabella was created by Lia Wainstein and appeared in Viaggio in
Drimonia (1965).
"...and the nearby Nexdorea..."
Nexdorea is from Tom Hood's Petsetilla's Posy (1870), a fairy tale much
influenced by Alice in Wonderland.
"Northwest lies the deserted Palace of Prince Prospero, no relative to our
Duke of Milan, with its seven different-coloured chambers, that was
devastated by an outbreak of the Red Death in the 16th century."
The Palace of Prince Prospero is from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of
the Red Death" (1842).
"...we pass the troubling police-state of Meccania..."
Meccania appears in Gregory Owen's Meccania, the Super-State (1918);
Meccania is troubling because it is a state completely regimented and
controlled by the government--the ultimate in totalitarian dystopias.
"...and come to Micromona..."
Micromona was created by Karl Immerman and appears in Tulifntchen,
Ein Heldengedicht in drei Gesngen (Tulifntchen, a hero poem in three
songs, 1830).
"...Percy left us at the border and went on to nearby Silling Castle
(owned by some nobles saved by Percy from the guillotine)."
Silling Castle is from Donatien-Alphonse-Franois, Marquis de Sade's vile
and pornographic 120 Days of Sodom (1785); Loki Carbis corrects my
mistake here and notes that the implication of this entry is that Percy
saved the four noblemen who were the protagonists of 120 Days of
Sodom.
"...suggested we should head on to Cockaigne, sometimes known as
Cuccagna..."
Cockaigne/Cuccagna is from the Le Dit de cocagne (The Sayings of
Cocagne, 13th century C.E.) and then Marc-Antoine Le Grand's Le Roi
de Cocagne (The King of Cocagne, 1719). Cocagne, or Cockaigne, is the
French equivalent of Utopia; in the middle ages numerous Cocagne
myths were told about "a land of fabled abundance, with food and drink
for the asking."
"On our last day we visited a builders that exported houses made of
food (cottages of gingerbread and such) to other parts of Germany."
Although Le Dit de Cocagne and Le Roi de Cocagne certainly referred to
houses made of food, the allusion to the story of Hansel and Gretel is
Moore's creation, rather than being in either work.
"Also in Germany is Mummelsee, a supernatural lake providing entrance
to the subterranean realm of Centrum Terrae..."
Mummelsee and the Centrum Terrae appeare in Johann Hans Jakob
Christoffel von Grimmelshausen's Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus
Teutsch (The Adventurous Simplicissimus Teutsch, 1668).
"Or perhaps a trip to Nuremberg might be in order. Here, in Presidential
antechambers, is a curious wardrobe granting access to the otherworldly
'Kingdom of the Dolls.'"
The wardrobe and the Kingdom of the Dolls first appeared, in very alien
(to modern eyes) form, in E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and the
King of the Mice" (1819), and then in a softened form in Alexandre
Dumas (pre)'s "The Nutcracker of Nuremberg," in Histoire d'une
cassenoisette (History of a Wardrobe, 1845); these both form the basis
for the modern Nutcracker ballet. As far as I know C.S. Lewis's use of a
similar wardrobe, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was
coincidental.
"It was from this strange realm, or areas adjacent, that an apple pip
was taken and used to grown the privately-kept tree within Kew
Gardens mentioned in our last installment."
Thus answering that question from issue #1.
"...we find the subterranean haunt of vagrants known as Under River,
and, nearby, a ruined mansion called the Black House, both locations
famous only in the psychiatric history of a violet-eyed young derelict
who turned up in 1907, out of nowhere. Alienists were fascinated by the
detail of the man's delusions, which concerned a sprawling castle to
which he was heir, its architecture and its rituals described so vividly
that many still believe his 'Castle Gormenghast' exists, although no
trace was ever found."
Under River and Black House both appear in Mervyn Peake's Titus Alone
(1959). The violet-eyed young man and Castle Gormenghast are from
Peake's Gormenghast trilogy: Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950),
and Titus Alone. The violet-eyed young man is Titus Groan, the seventy-
seventh Earl of Gormenghast, who adventures through the vast,
crumbling city-castle of Gormenghast.
The 1907 date is curious. I was initially hopeful that Moore was implying
that Kasper Hauser was Titus Groan, but the dates are all wrong, Hauser
appearing in 1828.
"Northward lies Auenthal, home of author Maria Wuz..."
Auenthal and Maria Wuz appear in Johann Paul Friedrich Richter's Leben
des vergngten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wuz in Auenthal (Life of the
Happy Schoolmarm Maria Wuz in Auenthal, 1793).
"Pierre Menard, second to chronicle the history of Don Quixote, was
influenced by Wuz..."
Pierre Menard appears in Jorge Luis Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of
Don Quixote" (1964).
Page 30. Still further north is Berlin, near the Falun Fault...
The Falun Fault appears in E.T.A. Hoffmann's Die Bergwerke zu Falun
(The Mines of Falun, 1819).
"...the underground realm of the Regentrude..."
Regentrude appears in Theodor Storm's Die Regentrude (1868).
"Next we reach Hamburg and the quarter called Sainte Beregonne..."
Sainte Beregonne appears in Jean Ray's Le Manuscrit franais (The
French Manuscript, 1946). Alberto Chimal corrects me (or, rather,
the source I used to identify this reference):
the right title of the novella where Sainte Beregonne is
mentioned is "The Dark Alley" ("La Ruelle tnbreuse"); it was
first published in 1952 and "The French Manuscript" is just about
the third part of the whole story, which deals with strange and
terrifying events at Sainte Beregonne.
"Further east is Auersperg Castle, gothic home of the notorious 19th-
century black magician Axel Auersperg..."
Axl d'Aursperg and his castle are from Philippe-Auguste Comte de
Villiers de L'Isle-Adam's Axl (1890; thanks to Shawn Garrett for
correcting my mistake here). Axl is a symbolist play most famous for
the line "Live? Our servants will do that for us!"
"...while off the Baltic coast are the Ear Islands, where live the Auriti..."
The Ear Islands and the Auriti appear in Pliny the Elder's Inventorum
Natura.
"Westward in Belgium, in a valley outside Brussels, are colonies
collectively referred to as Harmonia..."
There are two Harmonias, both very similar and which together fit the
description given here: Charles Fourier's Harmonia, found in Thorie des
Quatre Mouvements (Theory in Four Movements, 1808), and Georges
Delbruck's Au pays de l'harmonie (The Country of Harmony, 1906).
"On the Dutch border is the independent land of Gynographia..."
Gynographia was created by Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne and
appeared in his Les Gynographes, ou Ides de deux honntes femmes
sur un problme de rglement propos a toute l'Europe, pour mettre les
femmes leur place, et oprer le bonheur des deux sexes (The
Gynographes, or the Ideas of two honest women on a regulation
problem proposed for all of Europe, to put the women in places for
them, and to regulate the happiness of the two sexes, 1777). Percy
finds it not as enjoyable as he'd hoped because fidelity is obligatory in
Gynographia. Philip Cohen prefers his translation of the title: "The
Gynographers, or Ideas of two honest women on a problem of
regulation proposed to all of Europe, to put women in their
place, and to bring about the happiness of the two sexes."
"Nearby in Holland is the sleepy hamlet of Vondervotteimittis..."
Vondervotteimittis is from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Devil in the Belfry"
(1845).
"Just off the coast of Holland is the island Laiquihire, reportedly the
home of unseen deities..."
Laiquihire appears in Voyage Curieux d'un Philadelphe dans des Pays
nouvellement Dcouverts (The Strange Trip of a Philadelphian in a
Newly Discovered Country, 1755). The "unseen deities" are the Invisible
Deities, who sometimes reveal themselves when they engage in human
activities.
"...we must travel northward past the Mer-King's underwater realm near
Denmark..."
The Mer-King's aquatic kingdom appears in Marie Anne de Roumier
Robert's Les Ondins and in Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid
(1835).
"In northeast Greenland stand the hills known as the Devil's Teeth..."
The Devil's Teeth were created by Paul Alperine and appeared in La
Citadelle des Glaces (The Fortress of Ice, 1946).
"...which include Estotiland, whose folk are skilled in every science save
that of navigation, and Drogio..."
Estotiland and Drogio are from F. Marcolini's Dello scoprimento dell'Isole
Frislanda, Eslandia, Engrovelanda, Estotilanda e Icaria, fatto sotto il Polo
Artico dai due fratelli Zeno (1558). Philip Cohen says,
Estotiland developed a life outside of Marcolini's account; it's in
my Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd ed: 'A region in
America, near the Arctic Circle, referred to by Milton as 'cold
Estotiland', said to have been discovered in the 15th century.'
See http://www.philaprintshop.com/zeno.html for comments on
how Marcolini's account and accompanying map were taken as
factual and incorporated into legitimate maps from 1558 on.
"On the Icelandic mainland we discover the extinct volcano Hekla..."
Hekla appears in Tommaso Porcacchi's Le isole piu' famose del mondo
(The Most Famous Islands of the World, 1572). Hellst0ne notes that
Hekla is a real volcano.
"Westward lies the extinct volcano Snaefells Jokull, which in 1863 was
used by Hamburg's famed Professor Lidenbrock to enter the vast realm
discovered by the 16th-century Icelandic scholar, Arne Saknussemm."
These all appear in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth
(1864).
"Some of this underground lies beneath the north of Scotland, and may
be connected with Coal City, Roman State and Vril-ya country,
mentioned in our previous installment."
Coal City is from Jules Verne's Les Indes Noires (1877). The Roman
State is from Joseph O'Neill's Land Under England (1935). The Vril-ya
country is from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race (1871).
"East lies the Norwegian coast and Daland's Village, the only known port
where the famous Flying Dutchman was allowed to land..."
Daland's Village appears in Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman
(1843).
"...another tangle of sub-surface realms, such as Nazar..."
Nazar was created by Baron Ludvig Holberg and appeared in Nicolai
Klimii Iter Subterraneum Novam Telluris Theoriam Ac Historiam Quintae
Monarchiae Adhuc Nobis Incognitae Exhibens E Bibliotheca B. Abelini
(1741). Philip Cohen provides a translation for this title: "The
Journey of Niels Klim to a New Underground World, Setting Forth
the Theory and History of Five Kingdoms Hitherto Unknown to
Us, From the Library of B. Abelin."
"Nazar has links with caves in central Norway's Dovre Fjell mountains,
where trolls have been seen as recently as the late 19th century."
The trolls of the Dovre Fjell mountains appear in Henrik Ibsen's Peer
Gynt (1867).
"...the undersea realm Capillaria..."
Capillari is from Frigyes Karinthy's Capillaria (1921).
"Passing on through Sweden, formerly Cimmeria..."
Cimmeria was created by Robert E. Howard and appeared in Howard's
Conan stories. Jim Cannon complained that Cimmeria was located in
Wales ("Cimmeria = Cymru = Wales") in the Howard stories, not in
Sweden; Chris Davies responded that "the specific part of Cimmeria that
Conan was from -- the northwest of it, according to Howard, butting up
against Vanaheim -- is currently under the North Sea. So transplanting
his homeland into another part of Cimmeria that *isn't* -- southern
Sweden -- makes a certain amount of sense." Doug Muir added that
"there were two Cimmerias. One was derived from 'Cymru', Wales; the
other, from 'Himmerland,' southern Denmark -- aka Cimbria, if you want
to use the Latin. Howard was probably thinking of the Danish one." Ian
McDowell responds to the preceding with this:
Both sides in this argument have a point. Howard's Cimmeria does
indeed seem to be located in the far northlands amidst various
Germanic tribes, but the Cimmerians themselves are the ancestors of
modern Celts. Conan has a Celtic name, swears in Gaelic, and is
described in almost identical terms to the "Black Irish" heroes of Howard
stories with contemporary or historical settings.
Michael Frank adds the following:
The Cimmerians appear in Homer's Odyssee, at the beginning of
book 11. They live near the kingdom of the dead. Quote:
And she /Circe/ made the outer limits, the Ocean River's bounds
where Cimmerian people have their homes - their realm and city
shrouded in mist and cloud. The eye of the Sun can never flash
his rays through the dark and bring them light, not when he
climbs the starry skies or when he wheels back down from the
heights to touch the earth once more-an endless, deadly night
overhangs those wretched men. (transl. by Robert Fagles)
They also appear, less mythical, in Herodot, book 4, 11 ff., where
they are driven off their land in Southern Russia, near the Black
Sea, by the Scythians. The Cimmerians are a nomadic horse-
people, who also appear in Assyrian cuneiform texts. They later
invade Asia Minor, where they kill famous King Midas. They keep
on marauding and are later defeated by the Lydians; they then
vanish in the dark of history. They cannot be satisfyingly
identified - like many horse-people they only left little material
evidence. They very likely were of Scytho-Iranian origin (no
trace of a Germanic or Celtic element!).
"...the stunning ruins of the Snow Queen's Castle..."
The castle of the Snow Queen appears in Hans-Christian Andersen's
Snedronningen (The Snow Queen, 1844).
"Southwards, at Finland's tip, are friendlier places such as
Moominvalley, Daddy Jones' Kingdom and the Lonely Island, all
inhabited by an unusually pacifistic breed of troll..."
Moominvalley, Daddy Jones' Kingdom, and the Lonely Island are all from
Tove Jansson's delightful Moomintroll books.
Page 31. "...visited by Wilhelmina Murray and a youthful male friend
during 1912. Miss Murray and her paramour..."
I originally conflated "A.J." with "A.," Mina's youthful paramour, but as
several people have pointed out there's no reason why they have to be
the same person. This leaves open the question of who "A." might be.
What we know about him is this: his first initial is "A," he is an
adventurous type, he is familiar with Ayesha's Fountain of Life, and in
1912 he is younger than Mina. My guess (as well as Kevin Mowery's) is
that "A." stands for Allan Quatermain, who has somehow been
rejuvenated, most likely through exposure to Ayesha's Fountain of Life.
Win Eckert notes that "H. Rider Haggard's She and Allan takes place
circa 1872. If 'A.' is a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain, he may have been
slowly reverse-aging since that time. If this theory is true, it also may
be a double play by the creators on the title of another Quatermain
book: The Ancient Allan." Ben Moldover says,
I propose that "A." is the character of Auguste Lupa ('Son of
Holmes') aka Nero Wolfe.
Why? First, he's a detective, a calling Mina has an affinity for, as
evidenced by her correspondence with Dupin, as well as seeking
out Holmes during his bee-keeping. Second is the question of
age. We know that Minas travels happen from 1899 to 1912,
and its more likely that there were several shorter trips, rather
then one 13-year-long sabbatical, and A. would not necessarily
be with her on all of them. Those destinations where he is
mentioned as companion likely take place near the end of her
travels, as she refers to the events of Dracula as being 15 years
earlier. Auguste Lupa is a young man in 1915, so its reasonable
to think he would be so in 1912. He also turns up in France
which Mina, and likely A., came to in 1913 on League business.
As an addition I would offer some arguments against Allan and
A.J. Raffles, the other two candidates so far. Once again looking
to Wold-Newton reference, Raffles encountered Holmes in 1883.
For him to be a young man in 1912, he would have to have been
1 year old, at the Holmes meeting, which is highly unlikely. On
Allan, we know only two members of the current League survive,
by 1899, and I dont think the other one is Allan. This is because
on many occasions weve seen, he seems to have lost the mettle
he once had. These events include Hyde and Griffens captures
(1:1,1:2), The opium den in Lime House (1:3), discovery by the
Doctors guard(1:4), and last the confrontation with
Moriarty(1:6). He wasnt doing well before, and with an invisible
man planning to stab him in the back, I doubt he could survive to
be A..
We passed Klopstokia, a remarkable small country full of athletes...
Klopstokia appeared in the 1932 film Million Dollar Legs.
"...the tiny and yet somehow monstrous kingdom seized by the
horrendous King Ubu the First in 1896."
King Ubu the First appeared in Alfred Jarry's trilogy of plays, King Ubu,
Cuckold Ubu and Slave Ubu, all written in 1896. The kingdom is
monstrous just as Ubu himself is.
"...we saw the distant outline of Klepsydra Sanatorium, where Dr.
Gotard's time-reversal theories recently made news."
Klepsydra Sanatorium and Dr. Gotard appeared in Bruno Schulz's
Sanatorium pod Klepsydra (The Sanatorium of Kelpsydra, 1937).
"...the rejuvenating fountain in Ayesha's kingdom..."
Ayesha's kingdom appeared in H. Rider Haggard's She books, beginning
with She: A History of Adventure (1887). The rejuvenating fountain is
the means by which Ayesha maintained her immortality.
"Our carriage took us through the City of the Happy Prince..."
The City of the Happy Prince was created by Oscar Wilde and appears in
"The Happy Prince" (1888).
"From Strelsau, the capital of Ruritania..."
Strelsau (not Streslau, as I originally had it; thanks to David Goldfarb
for the correction) and Ruritania appear in the Zenda books of Anthony
Hope Hawkins, beginning with The Prisoner of Zenda (1894).
"...heading south to Lutha..."
Lutha is from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Mad King (1914).
"Along the way we passed a frightening edifice known only as 'The
Castle'..."
The Castle appears in Franz Kafka's Das Schloss (The Castle, 1926).
"...then through a nearby valley where there's said to be a penal
settlement..."
The penal settlement is from Franz Kafka's In der Strafkolonie (In the
Penal Settlement, 1919).
"...the valley led into Wolf's Glen..."
Wolf's Glen was created by Carl Maria, Freiherr von Weber, and Johann
Friedrich Kind and appeared in Der Freischtz (The Freeshooter, 1821).
"...we drove west to Kravna on Czechoslovakia's eastern border, where I
should have liked to visit the still-standing Tower of Suleiman."
This is meant to be a reference to the city of Slavna and its Tower of
Suleiman, part of the country of Kravonia, from Anthony Hope's Sophy
of Kravonia (1906).
Lang Thompson adds that "the reference to Czechoslovakia is mistaken
if it was supposed to have been written in 1912: That country wasn't
formed until 1918." True; in 1912 Czechoslovakia was still part of the
Hapsburg Monarchy & Austria-Hungary. But even in 1912 there was a
native movement for independence and the formation of an independent
"Czechoslovakia." Perhaps Mina was aware of that and was in sympathy
with their desire for independence? John Klump wonders if the Almanac
editors changed her regional reference to "Czechoslovakia" so that
modern readers would recognize it.
"...the independent countries of Sylvania and Freedonia..."
Sylvania and Freedonia both appeared in the Marx Brothers film Duck
Soup (1933).
"At last we reached the castle high in the Carpathians where He lived
once..."
Mina is referring to Castle Dracula.
Page 32. He died out on the ice, that dreadful, beautiful old man.
I confess to not quite understanding this. Dracula, in Dracula, died in his
coffin, cut through the throat and stabbed in the heart. Frankenstein
died on an ice floe, but I don't see why Mina would be thinking of him.
Joseph Nevin points out that Dracula died on a road, in the snow,
outside of Castle Dracula, but I still don't see how that is the same as
dying "out on the ice." Jean-Marc Lofficier, Andrew McLean, and Lang
Thompson note that Dracula dies on a frozen river in the film Dracula,
Prince of Darkness (1964). Jeff Meyer says,
Regarding "he died out there on the ice, that dreadful, beautiful old
man", I'd put forward the (rather tepid) theory that Dracula died as
related in Stoker's novel; but that Moore has plans for Dracula to return
to life in a future League story, where the fiend is eventually killed
someplace with a cold climate before the events described by the
Almanac.
In fact -- by George, I rather like this -- Dracula killer is Frankenstein's
Monster, up in the frozen North, where nights last for an awfully long
time (thus making it a wonderful place for a vampire.)
"The one disquieting thing that we discovered was a sheaf of mildewed
letters written to the former occupant by persons from a Transylvanian
city east of Belgrade. These, I hope, were writ in rust-brown ink, though
the content, with its cheerful reminiscences of awful acts performed on
earlier vists, suggests otherwise."
This is a reference to Selene (named later), which was created by Paul
Fval and which appeared in La Ville Vampire (City of Vampires, 1875).
Selene is a city of vampires; in the novel Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (mentioned
above as the author of The Mysteries of Udolpho) and a group of
vampire hunters destroy the leader of Selene, the vampire lord Goetzi.
"In Transylvania we passed the ruins of Castle Karpathenburg..."
Karpathenburg Castle is from Jules Verne's Le Chteau des Carpathes
(The Castle of the Carpathians, 1892).
"...the most astonishingly dismal town I've ever seen, this being called
the City of Dreadful Night."
The City of Dismal Night appears in James Thomson's The City of
Dreadful Night (1874).
"the family name. Bathory."
Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), a Hungarian noblewoman, is
infamous for her torture of girls and her bathing in their blood. J. Keith
Haney says, "Countess Elizabeth Bathory (mentioned in the final
page of the Almanac) was reputed by some sources to have
actually been a lover of Dracula in the historical record. Ergo,
that may very well have been how he could have passed on the
disease of vampirism to her in this universe."
"Yorga."
Yorga is from the films Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and The Return of
Count Yorga (1971).
"I even fancied I caught sight of the name Hapsburg, though in this I
surely was mistaken."
I am unaware of a fictional or historical vampire named Hapsburg; I
think this is just a jab at the Austrian House of Hapsburg. Ryan Laws
notes,
There have been a number of medical explanations for the myth of
vampirism. Porphyria is the most common, but hemophilia has also
been advanced. The Hapsburgs, if I remember correctly, suffered from
hemophilia, thus making them susceptible to the accusation of
vampirism. If so, this may be why AM is being so cagey here.
"...we found a pleasant inn quite near Evarchia on the Black Sea."
Evarchia appears in Brigid Brophy's Palace Without Chairs (1978).
"...then hired a boat to carry us to Leuke..."
Leuke is a part of Greek myth, appearing in, among other places, the
Aethiopis by Arctinus of Miletus. A later and more salacious version,
undoubtedly relating to the spirit which moved Mina to conjugal activity,
appears in James Branch Cabell's Jurgen.
Back Cover. "Women Who Fascinate." This is the female equivalent of
the "Men--Enlarge Your Penis" e-mail spam which circulates fairly
regularly.
"Kind Sire, you 'ave an 'onest face. Please buy our 'umble efforts." This
is not, as several people though, an add full of small references in need
of annotating. This is a small version of the cover to League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen v2 #3. When that issue comes out, I will
annotate it, but not before, if only because there are enough references
in this image that it needs to be viewed at full-size to get them all.