Literary Wonderlands

Travel Guide

Illustrations from the book

Imaginary worlds have captivated readers since the first works of literature. Lovingly researched and beautifully produced, Literary Wonderlands explores the timeless, captivating features of literature’s greatest fictional worlds and the minds that created them.

The book is comprised of nearly 100 sections, each of which details the plot of a famous fantasy world, the historical circumstances that surrounded its production, the author’s inspiration, and the place it holds in the public imagination. Roaming from classic tales including C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, this truly global collection chronicles over two thousand years of literary creation.

Miller  states in her introduction that the book is designed to focus on one of the ‘least celebrated’ aspects of reading; ‘its ability to make us feel transported to a different time and place’. We don’t think it;s the least celebrated at all!

Narnia:

The Chronicles of Narnia: ‘It isn’t the elaboration of the backdrop that casts the spell, that makes the place seem real in spite of its many absurdities, but the inexhaustible delight of the dancers who inhabit it, as well as the man who made it’