Literary Universes

Some authors interconnect their works:

characters from several works by Poul Anderson meet in the Old Phoenix Inn and more could have done;

half a dozen series by ERB are set in the same Solar System and, in one case, beyond the Solar System - thus, Tarzan returns from the Earth's Core shortly before Carson Napier sets off for Mars but lands on Venus etc;

both John Buchan and Dornford Yates present interactions between characters from different novels and series and even, in Yates's case, different genres;

Poirot and Marple do coexist although they do not meet.

Alan Moore describes a multi-author equivalent:

"...all the comic book stories produced by any given publisher are likely to take place in the same imaginary universe."

-Alan Moore, INTRODUCTION IN Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, Saga Of The Swamp Thing (New York, 1987), pp. v-xi AT pp. vi-vii.

 

Moore explains:

 

"For those more familiar with conventional literature, try to imagine Dr. Frankenstein kidnapping one of the protagonists of Little Women for his medical experiments, only to find himself subject to the scrutiny of a team-up between Sherlock Homes and Hercule Poirot." (p. vii)

 

Three Observations 

(i) Here we connect with Anderson because Holmes exists in the Time Patrol timeline. The Patrol must prevent Holmes from detecting their activities in his period but I speculate that they consult him during his retirement when such consultation no longer runs any risk of being recorded by Watson.

 

(ii) Alan Moore went on to write The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen in which all literary and fictional characters coexist.

 

(iv) Anderson's imaginary universes should be able to produce an equivalent of what Moore imagines involving Frankenstein, Little Women, Holmes and Poirot. Maybe Merau Varagan kidnaps Dahut in an attempt to prevent the inundation of Ys but finds himself subject to the scrutiny of a team-up between Trygve Yamamura and Bob Shining Knife, the FBI Agent in Operation Otherworld. Such a crossover narrative could be written without compromising the integrity of any of the individual works.