The case of the 'invisible' books: 10 titles 'written' by Sherlock Holmes

Every Wednesday, Alex Johnson delves into a unique collection of titles

From the culture of bees to the variability of human ears, invented books feature heavily in Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective series (Rex )

Some books are not merely difficult to track down, they are literally impossible to find. Because they don’t exist.

Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen
Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos
Upon the Tracing of Footsteps
The Influence of a Trade upon the Form of the Hand
On the Dating of Manuscripts
Upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus
Secret Writings
A Study of the Chaldean Roots in the Ancient Cornish Language
Upon Tattoo Marks
On the Variability of Human Ears (two monographs)

One of the earliest descriptions of these “invisible books” is by Thomas Browne in his late 18th century Musaeum Clausum, a fake catalogue of items including Aristotle’s de Precationibus, Pytheas’s account of travels beyond Ultima Thule, and a history of Hannibal’s expedition through the Alps which is better than Livy’s. Around 50 years later, Charles Lamb describes such things as “biblia a-biblia” in his essay “Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading”.

Arguably the most popular modern non-book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy published by Megadodo Publications.

So while Sherlock Holmes is known to have “written” The Blanched Soldier and The Lion’s Mane, which were both published in the Strand magazine, he also had enough time on his hands to produce the list above (some of which, the great man reveals, were translated into French by his fellow detective François le Villard).

The Influence of a Trade upon the Form of the Hand sounds particularly intriguing as it contains “lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, cork-cutters, compositors, weavers and diamond-polishers”.

In addition he mentions at various points that he is planning to write monographs on malingering, the typewriter’s relation to crime, and the use of dogs in the work of the detective, not to mention a hugely ambitious textbook about the whole art of detection.

Moriarty, in comparison, only managed to produce The Dynamics of an Asteroid.

Invented books feature heavily throughout Anthony Powell’s 12-volume A Dance to the Music of Time, not least the narrator Nick Jenkins’s book about Robert Burton, Borage and Hellebore.

(© Touchstone Pictures (C) Spygl)

Regularly mentioned throughout the series is Fields of Amaranth by St John Clarke, the title taken from Walter Savage Landor’s Aesop and Rhodopè:

There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave:
there are no voices, O Rhodopè, that are not soon mute, however tuneful:
there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated,
of which the echo is not faint at last.

Other titles include Camel Ride to the Tomb by FX Trapnel (a character based on novelist Julian Maclaren-Ross), whose biography – Death’s Head Swordsman, The Life and Works of X Trapnel – is then “written” by Russell Gwinnett.

There is also I Stopped at a Chemist by Ada Leintwardine, which is then turned into the successful film, Sally Goes Shopping.

Elsewhere, François Rabelais’s novel series Gargantua and Pantagruel is littered with bizarrely titled imaginary books such as Astrology’s Chimney Sweep, Bell Ringers’ Ballgames, Commercial Rope Tricks and Peas in Lard (and many with more scabrous titles).

One of the imaginary titles in Harry Potter: now a book and a movie franchise

A variation on the theme appears in “The Library of Dream” in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. This contains books by, mostly, real authors, but the titles are variations on their best-known works and only exist in the writers’ own dreams.

Here is a selection from the shelves:

Road Trips to the Emerald City by L Frank Baum
Tarzan in Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Alice’s Journey Behind the Moon by Lewis Carroll
Love Can Be Murder by Raymond Chandler
The Man Who Was October by GK Chesterton
The Return of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
The Conscience of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rooms by Neil Gaiman
The Merrie Comedie of the Redemption of Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
The Ring and the Phoenix by E Nesbit
The Fall of Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Arthur in Avalon by TH White
Psmith and Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

This is probably a homage to a similar kind of library of books planned but never written, which is mentioned in James Branch Cabell’s 1919 Beyond Life and which includes The Complete Works of David Copperfield.

Then there are slightly mind-blowing Russian doll-like books within books within books, such as The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (the multiple story depths include part of The Blind Assassin by Laura Chase), and Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller which is a tail-chasing labyrinth of titles.

And finally, in a case of life imitating art imitating life, some non-books have now actually been published. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series features dozens of imaginary titles, including three fictional ones which you can now read, Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Other examples of phantom books now mysteriously appearing in print include Holmes’s works on ash and bees, as well as HP Lovecraft’s textbook of magic, Necronomicon.

‘A Book of Book Lists’ by Alex Johnson, £7.99, British Library Publishing

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