Great books that reference great books

[kev67]

I read in a pull-out section of The Times a couple of days ago, that Pip from Great Expectations was reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein when Magwitch knocked on his door that stormy night.

I have not read Catcher in the Rye, but I gather the protagonist references David Copperfield in the opening passage.

What other books have you read that refer to other books.

[mona amon]

A character in The Moonstone is obsessed with Robinson Crusoe.


“You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
”
― Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

In Shirley Caroline Helstone reads Coriolanus with Robert Moore, mostly to teach him not to be too high handed with his mill workers.

[stlukesguild]

I would draw your attention to a great deal of J.L. Borges' writings.

[Pierre Menard]

I would draw your attention to a great deal of J.L. Borges' writings.

The great thing about Borges is that he doesn't just reference great authors, he really fosters an interest in seriously checking them out.

[Jackson Richardson]

In Northanger Abbey, the characters both read The Mysteries of Udolpho (like Pip reading Frankenstein) and the narration continuously parodies its style and conventions (which is more like the Catcher situation).

Trollope' The Eustace Diamonds has a very funny chapter of the pretentious heroine who says she loves Shelley actually trying to read Queen Mab. (The only bit of Trollope I'd bother with.)

[Jackson Richardson]

In Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust the luckless Tony Last ends up imprisoned by the mysterious Mr Todd deep in the Amazonian jungle so that he can endlessly read the complete works of Dickens aloud to him.

Golding's The Lord of the Flies is apparently a response to a forgotten Victorian plucky boy's classic, The Coral Island.

And talking about children and desert islands, Treasure Island is clearly the inspiration for Arthur Ransome's Peter Duck, one of the Swallows and Amazons series. Indeed the kids in those books are such compulsed literary fantasists, that their reading is continually referred to. I'm pretty sure they are on an island in Windermere in Swallows and Amazons because they've read Robinson Crusoe.

[Emil Miller]

Annixter one of the main characters in The Octopus by Frank Norris is reading David Copperfield at the start of the novel.

There are references to The Picture of Dorian Gray and Anna Karenina in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise as well as mentioning many authors in passing.

[Humming Bee]

I've bought blindly Pickwick Papers after one of characters from Anne of the Island by Montgomery mentioned it. The book surprised me a bit (simply not what I would expect), but for sure didn't disappoint.

[AuntShecky]

This is a good thread with a fascinating topic. ( However, please don't use "reference" as a verb. The word is a noun. Please write "Great books that contain references to other books," or "refer to" or "allude to" instead.)

The one example I could come up with (off the top of my head) was from The Inferno in the Canto involving Paolo and Franscesca. The couple winds up in the wind-swept first circle of Hell because of the sin of lust, stemming from the act of having read a book together, a steamy story from Arthurian legend. The illicit affair between Lancelot and Guinivere was, apparently, too hot for Dante's romantic couple to handle, and that's -- as the cliché goes-- "all she wrote." A pretext for Church-sanctioned censorship?

It wasn't until the somewhat more "enlightened" late nineteenth century that Mark Twain quipped: "No girl was ever corrupted by a book."

[Kafka's Crow]

I am reading Don Quixote these days and it is full of references to books of chivalric literature. Orlando Furioso is mentioned a couple of times as well as the Arthurian legends and many other similar poems from the antiquity. He also mentioned Pastor John who is one of the central themes in Umberto Eco's Baudolino.

And then there is The Name of the Rose which is a book about books and Eco once stated that every single concept and sentence in that book was taken from other books.

[lichtrausch]

( However, please don't use "reference" as a verb. The word is a noun. Please write "Great books that contain references to other books," or "refer to" or "allude to" instead.)

Sorry, this is prescriptivist nonsense.

[qimissung]

The word refernce can be used as a noun according to this dictionary entry, AuntShecky:


World English Dictionary
reference (ˈrɛfərəns, ˈrɛfrəns)

— n
1. the act or an instance of referring
2. something referred, esp proceedings submitted to a referee in law
3. a direction of the attention to a passage elsewhere or to another book, document, etc
4. a book or passage referred to
5. a mention or allusion: this book contains several references to the Civil War
6. philosophy
a. the relation between a word, phrase, or symbol and the object or idea to which it refers
b. Compare sense the object referred to by an expression
7. a. a source of information or facts
b. ( as modifier ): a reference book ; a reference library
8. a written testimonial regarding one's character or capabilities
9. a person referred to for such a testimonial
10. a. ( foll by to ) relation or delimitation, esp to or by membership of a specific class or group; respect or regard: all people, without reference to sex or age
b. ( as modifier ): a reference group
11. point of reference a fact forming the basis of an evaluation or assessment; criterion
12. terms of reference the specific limits of responsibility that determine the activities of an investigating body, etc

— vb
13. to furnish or compile a list of references for (an academic thesis, publication, etc)
14. to make a reference to; refer to: he referenced Chomsky, 1956

— prep
15. commerce re with reference to: reference your letter of the 9th inst


Helen in Jane Eyre is reading The History of Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson, which is a story about a young man’s search for happiness.

[Calidore]

Merriam-Webster has "reference" as noun, adjective, and transitive verb. Sorry, Aunty.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reference

[kelby_lake]

The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks has the protagonist reading Anna Karenina ;)

[ChicagoReader]

Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives is full of references to literature. William Gaddis' The Recognitions also.

[ladderandbucket]

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk is packed with references to Persian and Islamic literature. It's not a Great Book in itself (it's ok) but served as a nice introduction to an unfamiliar culture.

[Ser Nevarc]

Frankenstein's creature reads Goethe, Milton, and Plutarch.

Good taste :)

[OrphanPip]

In Northanger Abbey, the characters both read The Mysteries of Udolpho (like Pip reading Frankenstein) and the narration continuously parodies its style and conventions (which is more like the Catcher situation).


The book is pretty concerned with the idea of learning from literature, and particular with how the novel fits into those debates. Udolpho is the big allusion, but the novel opens with an ironic selection of "educational" quotes from Shakespeare, Gray, and Pope (if I remember correctly). Otherwise, there are also a number of occasions where people talk about books (Fielding and Burney are mentioned, along with a catalogue of obscure gothic romances), actually the characters almost incessantly talk about books throughout the entire novel (when they aren't discussing marriage prospects).

[Summer M]

I'm only fifty pages into Henry James's Watch and Ward, but it already referenced Don Quixote and Jane Eyre.

[kev67]

I'm only fifty pages into Henry James's Watch and Ward, but it already referenced Don Quixote and Jane Eyre.

By coincidence I am reading a book by David Lodge titled Author, Author, which is a fictionalized account of an episode of Henry James's life. So far it has referred to Daisy Miller, A Portrait of a Lady, The Princess Casamassima and The Beast in the Jungle.

[kev67]

The narrator in Norwegian Wood makes friends with another student at his university partly through a shared love of The Great Gatsby.

[AuntShecky]

Rather than make this thread veer off topic, I decided to make a new thread.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?71826-quot-Verbing-quot-nouns-Good-or-Not-so-Good&p=1178917#post1178917

[bIGwIRE]

Les Misérables refers to the writings of Plutarch, Virgil, Dante, and Homer many times throughout, drawing parallels to his own arguments, or expanding on their characters and themes.

[kev67]

Holly Golightly refers to Wuthering Heights in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The narrator, who is a struggling author, says it is not fair to compare his stories with a work of genius, before realizing that Holly has only watched the movie. This leads to a falling out when Holly detects a hint of condescension.

[ennison]

Arcadia by Iain Pears is probably not a great novel but it is very entertaining and playful. Part of the fun is noting the many nods at other books and literary forms.

[kev67]

The butler in The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins loved Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. He read it whenever he needed solace or guidance, in preference to the bible it seems. Curious, because Crusoe's ideas about right and wrong would have been questionable even then.

[Ecurb]

"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child...... In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure on Lewisham Road...."

So begins "The Magician's Nephew", by C.S.Lewis. As an aside, anyone who didn't read "The Treasure Seekers" by E. Nesbit (referenced here) as a child should sue his parents for child abuse.