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The world of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is a
fictional universe created by
Alan Moore in the
comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where all of the characters and events from literature (and possibly the entirety of fiction) coexist. The world the characters inhabit is one more technologically advanced than our own, but also home to the strange and supernatural. Beyond the comic itself, the world of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is expanded upon by supplemental prose material, including The New Traveller's Almanac, Allan and the Sundered Veil, and the documents from the Black Dossier[1],[2],[3].
The British Isles
In the Black Dossier, the
alternate history of the League's United Kingdom is explored in depth. As in medieval
Welsh Mythology, in approximately 1100 BC,
Brutus of Troy founds the kingdom of Britain (then called Brutain) with the capital at
New Troy. He is accompanied by the ageless and gender swapping
Orlando, who aids Brutus in subduing Brutain's population of savage giants and their chieftain,
Gogmagog. In 43 AD Britain is invaded by the
Roman Empire under
Claudius. In 363, the year of
Merlin's birth, the
Emperor Julian declares Britain a pagan nation. In 410 the Romans withdrew, and
Uther Pendragon rose to power. Circa 450, his son
Arturus became king, ruling until 468. Britain descended into barbarism, plagued by ogres, giants, and faeries ruled by Arthur's half-sister Morgana. The faerie remained a powerful force in Britain, so much so that King
Henry VIII took the second cousin of King
Oberon of the Faerie, the
polydactyl Faery-blooded
Anne Boleyn, as his wife. From this union sprang
Queen Gloriana the First, who reigned from 1558 to 1603. Under her rule, magical and otherworldly forces became more popular in Britain. Her court held such notables as
Johannes Suttle, Edward Face, Sir
Jack Wilton, and Sir
Basildon Bond (ancestor to Campion and James Bond). Gloriana was also the patron and associate of
William Shakespeare.
After her death, the puritanical magic hater
King Jacob the First ascended to the throne, and proceeded to purge the faerie and other supernatural races from Britain, resulting in the faerie kingdom cutting all ties with the human world by 1616. It was also under Jacob's rule that the
King Jacob Bible was compiled. Beginning in 1610,
Prospero, by order of a decree written by Gloriana before her death, began to assemble
the first 'League' of extraordinary individuals to defend Britain. The group disbanded when Prospero returned to the Blazing World, but was succeeded by similar groups in the 1740s, early 19th century, 1890s, early 20th century, and a failed group in the 1950s.
In the late 1890s the United Kingdom was
attacked by Martian invaders, who were defeated via
germ warfare. The nation went on to fight in World War I and against the Germany of
Adenoid Hynkel in World War II. After the war,
General Sir Harold Wharton, an agent implanted by rogue factions of MI5 into the
Labour Party, took power and turned the United Kingdom into a communist dictatorship. Under Wharton's
Ingsoc government, cameras monitored citizens' daily activities, torture of dissidents was widespread, and a reduced and simplified version of English known as
Newspeak was made the official language of the state. After Wharton's death in 1952, he was succeeded by
Gerald O'Brien. O'Brien was unable to maintain power, and conceded to the
Conservative Party's demands to be reinstated as an official party. Soon after he was voted out of office, and most of the Ingsoc government's programs were reversed. By 2008, Britain's Prime Minister is
Tom Davis and engaged in a prolonged war in
Q'umar.
The first chapter of The New Traveller's Almanac covers Britain and Ireland, describing, in addition to sites related to British and Irish folklore such as
faeries,
leprechauns,
giants,
The Mabinogion, and
Arthurian legend, sites from both British and Irish literature such as:
A description of how the works of
Lewis Carroll tie into the world: In 1861,
Alice (referred to in the almanac as "Miss A.L.", a reference to
Alice Liddell using the convention of withholding the names of children) disappears into a portal to a parallel universe (Wonderland) by the shores of
River Thames, and washes up soaking wet several months later, after her disappearance created a media panic. Although she had been gone for months, only an afternoon had passed in Wonderland. She recounted how she'd fallen down a puzzling "hole" that she'd found in the riverbank, only to find herself in a disorienting realm where many laws of physics, even laws of logic, were entirely different from those of our world.
She gets sucked into the world again 10 years later while visiting
Oxford,
via a looking-glass, but returns with her body inverted so that features on her left side are now on her right side and vice versa. She has situs inversus, but does not die from it. She dies from malnutrition, because her amino acids and proteins are now
isomers. A being made of isomer proteins is 'incompatible' with Earth's biosphere, which exhibits a preferential handedness. An expedition to explore the original riverbank hole was then organized by a "Dr. Bellman", accompanied by a lawyer, a banker, a butcher, a shoemaker, a bonnet-maker, a billiard-maker, and a woman named "Miss Beever" (a reference to the cast of The Hunting of the Snark). They too disappeared, and reappeared again months later, except the baker (who vanishes in The Hunting of the Snark); their adventure log is nothing but nonsensical poetry (a reference to Phantasmagoria and other poems by Carroll, including The Hunting of the Snark). The banker suffers the same fate as Alice, although his skin has become black whilst his hair and waistcoat have become white (a reference to the line in the poem "While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white."). All of the survivors are institutionalized, and years later, Mina Murray visits the only living survivor, Dr. Bellman, who gives her a blank piece of paper that's supposedly a map to Snark Island (the same map which Bellman used to navigate the sea to Snark Island).
Winton Pond, from
Graham Greene's Under the Garden (1963), which contains references to both Alice books, is subsequently mentioned in passing.
Nightmare Abbey, from Thomas Love Peacock's novel of the same name.
The world of the
Vril, from a novel by
Edward Bulwer-Lytton. They are enigmatically connected to
C. S. Lewis's
Narnia. The word for "sin" and "evil" in their language is "Nania" [sic], (an invention of Moore, not Lytton) and the reader is directed to a (fictional) document referring to a British project to grow an
apple tree. (Allegedly, this would be the apple tree that Digory planted with a seed brought from Narnia as seen in The Magician's Nephew and that in later years would provide the wood for the wardrobe that served as a portal back to Narnia in The Chronicles of Narnia's first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.).
Airfowlness, the meeting-place of the crows from The Water Babies.
Coradine, from
W.H. Hudson's A Crystal Age, where Mina Murray moves to at the end of Volume Two. (Moore ignores the fact that A Crystal Age takes place in the future. Although, in the world of the League, it is entirely possible that the future of the novel could be the past as we see it, much like the way Moore treated Orwell's 1984.)
Leixlip Castle, from
Charles Robert Maturin's novel of the same name, haunted by faeries.
Dublin, the streets of which are haunted by the ghost of
Molly Malone, and where a red-tiled house was haunted by a disembodied hand, as described in
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard (most sources incorrectly give the title as The Siege of the Red House).
The house of Mr. Mathers that is a portal to a hellish parallel-Ireland, from The Third Policeman.
Coromandel, from
Edward Lear's The Courtship of Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò (1877) Note: This not a reference to the real
Coromandel, the south-eastern coastal region of India, but a reference to the fictional Coromandel from Lear's famous nonsense poem.
Anostus, from
Claudius Aelianus' 2nd Century Varia Historia, with two rivers called "Pleasure" and "Grief". Beside these two streams grow fruit, the fruit of the former causes a lifetime of joy, and the fruit of the latter causes a lifetime of sorrow.
Andrographia, from
Nicolas-Edme Rétif's 1782 tome Andrographe ou idées d'un honnête homme sur un projet de réglement proposé à toutes les nations de l'Europe pour opérer une réforme générale des moeurs, et par elle, le bonheur du genre humain avec des notes historiques et justificatives (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 libertine isle of Trypheme, from
Pierre Louys' Les Aventures du roi Pausole (1901).
Islands off the coast of France
Papafiguiera, from
Béroalde de Verville's 1610 work Le Moyen de parvenir. Oeuvre contenant la raison de tout ce qui a esté, est, et sera, avec démonstrations certaines et nécessaires selon la rencontre des effets de vertu (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) inhabited by extremely obese people.
Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel is home to the Clerkship Island, Ruach the Windy Island, the
Fortunate Islands - including the Isle of Butterflies, inhabited by monstrous butterflies - Pastemolle the pie island, and Breadlessday Island.
Leaveheavenalone, from Charles Kingsley's Water Babies (1863).
Flora, which was "murderously beset by
witches", from
Ferdinand Raimund's 1837 dramatic faerytale Die gefesselte Phantasie (The Bound Imagination).
Lubec, from
Béroalde de Verville's Le Moyen de parvenir, where the inhabitants have removable genitals (stored in the Town Hall). Moore explains that it was founded by inhabitants of Thermometer Island. There are no connections between the two works in reality.
Calejava, the republic from Claude Gilbert's Histoire de Calejava ou de l'Ilse des Hommes Raisonnables, avec le Paralelle de leur Morale et du Christianisme (1700). Entertainments are not found here, hence Mina's summation of "screamingly dull".
Parthenion Town is from Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne's 1769 work Le Pornographe, ou ideés d'un Honnête homme sur un projet de réglement pour les prostituees (The Pornographer, or Ideas of an Honest man for a Scgeme of Regulation for the Prostitutes).
Neverreachhereland is from
André Dhôtel's Les Pays où l'on n'arrive jamais (The Country One Never Reaches, 1955).
Fluorescente is from
Tristan Tzara's Grains et Issues (Grains and Exits, 1935).
Suicide City is from José Muñoz Escamez's La Ciudad de los Suicidas (The City of the Suicides, 1912), a novel written as an informal sequel to
Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club" (1882).
The Hollow Needle is a naturally formed cave which Arsène Lupin used in
Maurice Leblanc's L'Aiguille Creuse (The Hollow Needle, 1909).
Auenthal and Maria Wuz, from
Johann Paul Friedrich Richter's Leben des vergnügten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wuz in Auenthal (Maria Wuz is said to have influenced
Pierre Menard).
The realm of the Regentrude, from
Theodor Storm's Die Regentrude.
Sainte Beregonne, from
Jean Ray's La Ruelle ténébreuse.
Springfield, the town where Moore says the
Cat in the Hat appeared. (The Gazeteer places the town in Massachusetts; the real town of Springfield, MA is the hometown of Theodor Seuss Geisel, who wrote
Cat in the Hat under the pen name
Dr. Seuss.)
Beaulieu, from
Ralph Adams Cram's Walled Towns. Beaulieu is built on the "
Miskatonic River leading into Arkham" and is stately implied that the town's defenses are meant to protect from Lovecraftian horrors.
The Kingdom of the Amphicleocles, from
Charles de Fieux Mouhy's Lamekis, ou les voyages extraordinaires d'un Egyptien dans la terre intérieure, avec la découverte de l'Isle des Silphides, enrichi des notes curieuses.
The sixth chapter of the Almanac covers the
Arctic and
Antarctica.
Islands and seas off the coast of Antarctica
Megapatagonia, archipelago in the South
Pacific Ocean stretching south from
Tierra del Fuego, similar to the Blazing World archipelago north of Britain, inhabited by animal men and an inverse of French society. The capital city is "Sirap". From La Découverte australe par un homme-volant by
Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne.
Pyrandia island, in the South Pacific Ocean southwest of the Megapatagonia islands, west of the
Antarctic peninsula, home to fire men, from Supplément de l'Histoire véritable de Lucien by Jean Jacobé de Frémont d'Ablancourt.
The Leap Islands, which in LoEG also are a part of the Academic Sea, containing Aggregation Harbour on the Isle of Leaphigh, inhabited by enlightened monkey-men, from The Monikins by
James Fennimore Cooper.
Caprona/Caspak, a land mass in the South Pacific Ocean, inhabited by dinosaurs and a variety of
homonid species at different stages of evolution, from
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Caspak Trilogy.
The Mountains of Madness and the City of the Old Ones, from At the Mountains of Madness by
H. P. Lovecraft (in LoEG the Mountains of Madness are part of the Iron Mountains).
North Pole Kingdom, a land populated by civilized dinosaurs living under the polar ice cap, from Le Peuple du Pôle by Carles Derennes.
Polar Bear Kingdom, inhabited by intelligent polar bears who also advertise
Coca-Cola, from 20,000 Lieues Sous Les Glaces (or 20,000 Leagues Under the Ice) by
Mór Jókai and a parody of the 1993 "Polar Bears" Coca-Cola advertising campaign by
Creative Artists Agency.
Mountain-Door to Mandai Country, subterranean land, from Iran by Hirmiz bar Anhar.
The Island of
Thule, from The Bibliotheca historia (Library of History) by
Diodorus Siculus, Geographika (Geography) by
Strabo, and The Gothic War by
Procopius (or possibly Thule from Robert E. Howard's Kull stories).
The Arctic counterpart to the Iron Mountains, with an entrance to the subterranean land of either Pluto,
Pellucidar (from At the Earth's Core by
Edgar Rice Burroughs), Atvatabar (from The Goddess of Atvatabar by
William R. Bradshaw), or Ruffal (from La vie, les avanture, and le voyage de Groenland du Révérend Père Cordelier Pierre de Mesange by Simon Tyssot de Patot) or possibly all of these subterranean worlds.
The home of
Santa Claus, described as a
shaman clad in
reindeer hide whose spirit guides ("little helpers") encourage him to spread joy around the world on the winter solstice. He has also been visited by the Coca-Cola representatives.