The Dictionary of Imaginary Places

During my recent rip to the local Royal Mail delivery office to collect my second copy TRAVEL BATTLE, I also collected a parcel from Germany that contained a copy of THE DICTIONARY OF IMAGINARY PLACES.

I had read a short review of this book online, and decided that for someone like me who has an interest in imagi-nations, it was an absolute 'must have'. My copy is 755 pages long, was published in 2000 by Turtleback Books (ISBN 978 0 613 56311 6), and was compiled by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi. I opted for the edition that was produced in what is termed 'School and Library Binding' as this is a big book and I wanted to make sure that I would never have any problems with it falling apart over years to come.

As to the content ... well as one would expect, many famous imaginary places are included within its pages (e.g. Ruritania, Nania, Middle Earth, Earthsea, Hogwarts, Utopia, Atlantis, Arkham) and some that are by no means as well known (e.g. Cacklogallinia, the island in the Caribbean). What is also interesting is what is missing. This list includes such places as:

• Graustark, and its neighbours Axphain and Dawsbergen (as featured in the GRAUSTARK novels by George Barr McCutcheon)
• Borduria, Syldavia, San Theodoros, and Nuevo Rico (as featured in the Tintin books by Herge)
• Costaguana and Sulaco (as featured in Joseph Conrad's NOSTROMO)
• Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania (as featured in George Orwell's 1984)
• Maltovia and Lovitzna (as featured in Captain W E John's book BIGGLES GOES TO WAR)
• Melniboné (as featured in Michael Moorcock's ETERNAL CHAMPION stories)
• The nations of Hyboria (as featured in Robert E Howard's many stories)
• Barsoom (as featured in the science fiction stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs)
• Laurania (as featured in Winston S Churchill's only novel, SAVROLA)

Bearing in mind the date of the book's publication, it is less surprising to see that George R R Martin's Westeros doesn't seem to get an entry, but I would have thought that Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld's Ankh-Morpork might have done.

The big plus this book has for me is its maps. There are 150 of them, all drawn in black and white and all full of potential inspiration for the users of imagi-nations! One map in particular caught my eye. It was of the Karain Continent, which was situated in the South Pacific. Most of the coastal areas were under the control of the British, French and Germans, but the remainder was an independent nation populated by different tribal groups. It all sounded very reminiscent of Eric Knowles's MADASAHATTA, a place that I know well from the year-long campaign he ran – and I took part in – many years ago.