The ERBian Dimension II

I do not think that Poul Anderson refers anywhere to ERB? We have listed Old Phoenix guests in:

Guests In The Old Phoenix
Guests In The Old Phoenix II
Guests In The Old Phoenix III
Open To Everything
Multiverse
A Lensman In The Old Phoenix
A Large Gathering In The Old Phoenix
Anonymous Historical Characters
Anonymous Historical Characters II
Anonymous Historical Characters III
Anonymous Historical Characters IV 
The Old Phoenix

- and they did not include Greystoke or Carter etc.

SM Stirling wrote an ERBian pastiche - see A Paxton and the link from it - and this is the sort of thing that Anderson would have done. I have argued that an Andersonian rationale of ERB's absurdities would have been a good idea. See here.

A Midsummer Tempest X

Poul Anderson's inn between worlds is called "the Old Phoenix." Neil Gaiman's is called "the Inn of the Worlds' End." Both names mean an ending. "The Old Phoenix" also implicitly means a re-beginning. Less overtly, "Worlds' End" also means a new beginning. The Inn itself is maintained and renewed by the continual ending of worlds. It is one of several "free houses" owing no allegiance to any realm so these could include the Old Phoenix.

House rules differ. Guests stay for only one night at a time in the Old Phoenix. In both, stories are told. The Worlds' End is a Chaucerian framing device whereas the Old Phoenix is an interlude in a novel, A Midsummer Tempest, and the setting for two short stories. The Old Phoenix landlord is a hospitable gentleman whereas the Worlds' End landlady is an Indian woman who, we come to realise, is Kali.

I imagine another inn where people have ended a journey. In Anderson's "Delenda Est," the Time Patrol deletes a timeline in which Carthage won the Second Punic War. I argue on my "Logic of Time Travel" blog that, when the Patrol "deletes," as they see it, a timeline, that timeline does not cease to exist from the point of view of its inhabitants. Either it simply does not exist (the potential timeline in which I remained a bachelor was prevented when I married) or it does exist as experienced by those in it.

If there is a temporal axis along which it would be true to say that the Carthaginian timeline had existed but now no longer exists, then that temporal axis is at right angles to the timeline itself. Therefore, the cessation of the timeline's existence is not an event on the timeline. If people lived in it, then, from their point of view, they continue to live in it. So I imagine a group of Time Patrollers trapped in the Carthaginian timeline without access to a time machine. With a machine, they would be able to travel back to a time before the divergence, then travel forwards into their home timeline but, without a machine, they are stranded in the wrong timeline where they can only share a drink and talk about old times.

Notes On "House Rule"

Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, The Armies Of Elfland (New York, 1992), pp. 64-76.

In this edition, Anderson, introducing the story, tells us that:

"That inn beyond every world, the Old Phoenix, first appeared in my Shakespearean fantasy novel, A Midsummer Tempest." (. 64)

He adds:

"I have returned to it a couple of times and hope to do so again." (ibid.)

A Midsummer Tempest is copyright 1974;
"House Rule" is copyright 1976;
"Losers' Night" is copyright 1991.

These are the only Old Phoenix stories that I know of, which implies that Anderson had not returned to the Old Phoenix before writing "House Rule." (?)

He had hoped to return to it again! The Old Phoenix deserves at least a single volume entirely to itself.

The narrator of "House Rule" had been on "...a flight which had been forced down above the Arctic Circle..." (p. 69), where some Eskimos had been helpful. This does not sound like Poul Anderson but does it sound like an adventure of ERB in the introductory passage of his second Moon book? (I am not going to look that up right now.)

On this occasion in the Old Phoenix:

"The talk was mainly Leonardo's. Given a couple of goblets of wine to relax him, his mind soared and ranged like an eagle in a high wind." (p. 66)

A striking simile. I want to comment on some other aspects of the story but find that I have already done so. See Open To Everything.

Addendum: OK. The Armies Of Elfland is copyright 1992. Thus, when Anderson wrote that he had returned to the Old Phoenix a couple of times, he was referring to "House Rule" and "Losers' Night."

Free Houses

"...the free houses that owe no allegiance to any one time or dominion..."

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Wake (New York, 1997), p. 29, panel 2 -

- include:

Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End;

Gaiman's Toad-Stone;

Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix.

Differences between Worlds' End and Old Phoenix

(i) The Old Phoenix is between worlds whereas Worlds' End is at the end of all worlds. (Since worlds are ending all the time, the Worlds' End Inn is continually created.)

(ii) The Old Phoenix is always the same:

"The taproom is changeless..."

-Poul Anderson, "Loser's Night" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1996), pp. 105-123 AT p. 108 -

- whereas Worlds' End changes its size and shape even while people are in it.

(iii) In the Old Phoenix:

"Windows are always shuttered, I suppose because they would not look out over any of the worlds on which the front door opens, but onto something quite peculiar."

-Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, 1981), pp. 9-20 AT p. 12.

- whereas guests in the Worlds' End both hear and see a storm - which is really a "reality storm" - and then see something very peculiar.

Multiverse: The Man Who Came Late

Harry Turtledove, "The Man Who Came Late" IN Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois, Editors, Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (Burton, MI, 2014), pp. 37-60.

OK. There is an Old Phoenix story in this anthology but the tavern is seen only from the outside, and it provides the story's resolution.

"The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson is a stand alone short story about a twentieth century man who travels to, and dies in, the Viking period. "The Man Who Came Late" by Harry Turtledove is a sequel to Poul Anderson's novel, Three Hearts And Three Lions. At the end of that novel, Holger Danske leaves the world in which he has met Alianora. In Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, Danske is in the inter-universal Old Phoenix, trying to find his way back to that world. In "The Man Who Came Late," Danske returns after thirty years to find that Alianora is married with three grown up children.

How will this situation be resolved? Will Alianora leave with Holger? No. Will Holger instead leave with Alianora's daughter who resembles her as she was? No. The Old Phoenix appears and Holger enters it alone, although Morgan le Fay, unaged, has been glimpsed through its open door.

I have suggested before that a collection with the proposed title of The Old Phoenix And Other Universes could comprise a couple of alternative universe short stories followed by Anderson's two Old Phoenix stories. This sequel by Turtledove would make an appropriate conclusion to such a volume.

Multiverse And The Old Phoenix

Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois, Editors, Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (Burton, MI, 2014).

Fellow Earthlings, this post has to be short. I have to turn in and will  have a busy day with little or no blogging tomorrow but here is a night time thought: why no Old Phoenix story in Multiverse and will there be a Multiverse II where this omission can be rectified? The Old Phoenix is a place where many if not all of the series could be tied together, although a mere crowd scene would not do any of them justice.

There almost is an Old Phoenix story because Astrid Anderson Bear writes:

"...it is bitter-sweet to contemplate my Dad's characters hoisting a mug together in the Old Phoenix Tavern..." (p. 184).

- so there is a story waiting to be written although I can't write it because I can't write fiction. All that I can do is read it and say what I think is right or wrong with it and, hopefully, be disagreed with.

Multiverse

According to the Danellians and their Time Patrol, only one timeline exists at a time. Since each timeline comprises an entire four-dimensional spatio-temporal continuum, the phrase "one...at a time" that I have just used can refer only to a second time axis containing a succession of such continua, each continuum existing at a different time, thus "one at a time," along that second temporal dimension.

According to the proprietor of the inter-cosmic Old Phoenix Inn, many timelines exist at the same time. Thus, the Time Patrol and Old Phoenix series present contradictory cosmologies.

However, could the variable timeline guarded by the Time Patrol itself be one of the many universes that have fleeting access to the Old Phoenix? Thus, could Manson Everard of the Patrol also find his way to the inter-cosmic Inn?

As things stand, the timecycles of the Time Patrol, the time corridors of the Wardens and Rangers, the self-propelling time travelers of the Eyrie and of Jack Havig's rival group and the many doors to the Old Phoenix exist in the alternative realms of Poul Anderson's imagination as expressed in different volumes of his complete works. However, we are free to speculate about connections between various ultimates like:

the Danellians;
the "gods" of the further future in "Flight To Forever";
the literal gods of Anderson's heroic and historical fantasies;
the Elder Races that exist, or are believed to exist, in various timelines;
the cosmic energy accessed by the Black Nebulans and the Chereionites;
cosmic AI in the further future of Anderson's Genesis;
the transtemporally communicating interstellar civilization of Starfarers;
the mysterious licensing authority of the Old Phoenix.

Ideally, each fictional universe could be continued indefinitely while, at the same time, additional volumes or subtle inter-textual cross-references could be used to construct an immense hyper-cosmic unity. Anderson's canon is vast and makes us wish for more.

(Tomorrow: coach from North West to South East of England, depart 6.00 am, return evening, anti-racist march through London (No Nazi parties in the European Parliament!), no time for blogging, plenty of time for creative thinking on the Motorway, fried breakfast and coffee in the Services.)

Old Phoenix POV's

Careful rereading is necessary. The first person narrator of Poul Anderson's "House Rule" informs us that the Peter Abelard whom he sees in the Old Phoenix Inn is:

"...still a whole man."

-Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, September, 1981), pp. 9-20 AT p. 16 -

- i.e., has not been castrated, as he was in our history. 

The first person narrator of Anderson's "Losers' Night" informs us that he has:

"...heard, or seen for myself..."

-"Losers' Night," p. 111. (my emphasis)

- that several legendary, mythical, fictional, literary or historical persons have visited the Old Phoenix and that these include:

"...an Abelard who remained a whole man..." (ibid.)

I had to check. The absence of that phrase, "...or seen for myself...," would have implied different narrators for these two stories.

That narrator is absent from the Old Phoenix passages in A Midsummer Tempest which are all in the third person. Chapter xi begins with Prince Rupert's point of view (pov) but becomes omniscient narrator when he leaves the taproom. In xii, Rupert returns to the taproom and the narrative returns to his pov. In both cases, Valeria Matuchek is present. In the Epilogue, Rupert and his companion, Will, are long gone, Valeria has just finished recounting their story to a larger group of guests and the narration is from her pov.

And that is it for Old Phoenix povs. As Valeria concludes:

"'I hope you've enjoyed my story.'"

-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), p. 229.

Here the author addresses his readers.

Multidimensional Explanations

"Starfog."

The Kirkasanter physicist, Hirn Oran's son, postulates a multidimensional framework to explain the coexistence of the small Cloud Universe and the larger darker universe but this is unnecessary. However, such a framework is necessary to explain Nicholas van Rijn's visit to the Old Phoenix - but neither Hirn nor Laure knows or even suspects anything about such an extra-cosmic visit. It is irrelevant to "Starfog."

I told someone recently that characters from different books can meet in the Old Phoenix so let's confirm that:

Holger Danske from Three Hearts And Three Lions and Valeria Matuchek from Operation Otherworld meet in the Old Phoenix in A Midsummer Tempest, Chapters xi-xii;

Sancho Panza from Don Quixote and Nicholas van Rijn from the Solar Commonwealth period of the Technic History meet in the Old Phoenix in "House Rule";

Sherlock Holmes and Huckleberry Finn, each with a recognizable companion, are present in the Old Phoenix in A Midsummer Tempest, Epilogue.

Poul Anderson delivers the goods. 

Fictions And Timelines

In a timeline where John Watson really did write the Sherlock Holmes stories, does Conan Doyle not exist or still exist and write Professor Challenger, Brigadier Gerard etc or are these characters real as well?

Does the mutable timeline guarded by Poul Anderson's Time Patrol coexist with the multiple timelines accessible from Anderson's Old Phoenix Inn? Sherlock Holmes exists in the mutable timeline and visits the Old Phoenix but these could be alternative versions of Holmes. There could be several versions of Holmes with access to the Old Phoenix. Holmes also existed in the past of Anderson's Rustum History timeline.

Does the Nicholas van Rijn who visits the Old Phoenix come from Anderson's Technic History or from the alternative future of the original version of Anderson's "Margin of Profit"? Both of these van Rijns and more could meet in the Old Phoenix.

After Manchester yesterday, I will be at the monastery in Northumberland today so there will be no more posts until this evening or tomorrow.

The Old Phoenix Sequence

I suggest "the Old Phoenix Sequence" as an umbrella title not only for the one novel and two short stories featuring this inter-universal tavern but also for the three other novels that are connected by common characters. Holger Danske, Valeria Matuchek and the unnamed narrator of the short stories are the unifying characters of the entire sequence.

I thought I had found evidence that both Holger and Rupert of the Rhine visit the Old Phoenix at least twice. The short stories narrator mentions them although he was not present when they met there in A Midsummer Tempest. However, a closer examination of the text in All One Universe (New York, 1996) reveals that he says only:

"...I have heard, or seen for myself..." (p. 111)

 - followed by a list of names including Holger and Rupert.

Whether Holger ever returns to his original Carolingian mythological timeline is one of several unanswered questions in the Anderson canon. Sequels that Anderson did not have time to write include:

Holger's return;
what happened after the events in The Broken Sword;
the career of Dominic Flandry's daughter;
one last volume to complete and conclude the Time Patrol series?

The Old Phoenix is one of several physical locations that become familiar as we read Anderson. Outside, the signboard shows a phoenix near its death and resurrection carrying a branch of cloves to a nest it is weaving and there is an elephant's head door handle. Inside, there are:

massive ceiling beams;
oak floor and walls;
a long central table with benches;
smaller tables;
a log fire in a stone fireplace;
intricately carved, ivory-inlaid armchairs;
a mahogany bar with a brass foot rail;
a door to the kitchen;
a staircase to bedrooms;
crammed bookshelves;
a desk with writing materials and two globes;
a mantelpiece with a giant hourglass and two seven-branched brass candlesticks which together with tapers on the walls adequately light the taproom;
a ticking grandfather clock;
windows shuttered against the inter-cosmic void;
wall pictures including what we recognize from its description as a photograph of Saturn.

Narrator And Author

Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, 1981), pp. 9-20.

Occasionally, the first person narrator of a work of fiction is explicitly identified with its author, e.g., Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge and CS Lewis in the Ransom Trilogy. Is the narrator of Poul Anderson's two Old Phoenix stories likely to be identical with Anderson?

The landlord of the Old Phoenix says that his guests:

"...are those who have good stories wherewith to pay him..." (p. 9)

- yet this narrator is "...not quite sure why..." (ibid,) he is invited. Maybe "stories" means life experiences rather than invented yarns although I should think that Anderson was rich in the former as well.

The narrator speaks Italian. Did Anderson? I don't know. I am merely listing data about the narrator.

He also speaks some medieval French but adds that his visits to the Old Phoenix have encouraged "...such studies." (p. 11)

Even if the narrator is Anderson, he does not express any surprise at meeting one of his characters, Nicholas van Rijn.

He was on a flight that was forced down somewhere in the Arctic and received local help.

There might be some more information in the other story, "Losers' Night," which I will reread shortly.

For the "shadowy beings" in the Old Phoenix, see here. 

Neil Gaiman offers an explanation of his Inn of the Worlds' End and maybe by extension of other such Free Houses:

Chiron: ...we will be safe in this place. The tavern itself cannot be harmed; that is the way of things. It is being continually created; after all, worlds are ending all the time.

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994), p. 146, panel 2.

Character Interactions

Apparently, a large cast of characters interact with each other in Balzac's works. See Literary Unity. Readers appreciate unexpected encounters with familiar characters. In Poul Anderson's works:

Valeria Matuchek from the two Operation... novels and Holger Danske from Three Hearts And Three Lions meet in the Old Phoenix in A Midsummer Tempest and both are again mentioned in the Old Phoenix story, "Losers' Night";

Nicholas van Rijn from the Technic History visits the Old Phoenix in "House Rule";

Anderson acknowledges Heinlein's Future History by mentioning in "Losers' Night" that blind Rhysling also visited the Old Phoenix - we hope that he met van Rijn;

the hero of a one-off juvenile short story meets Adzel when the latter is a student on Earth;

van Rijn cameos in the first trader team story, interacts fully with the team in three later works and is mentioned elsewhere either as a celebrity or as a historical figure.

However, I think that Dornford Yates surpasses most other authors for character interactions. See here. 

The Time Patrol And The Old Phoenix

I do not think that Manse Everard of the Time Patrol can ever visit the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix. The premise of the Time Patrol series is a mutable timeline scenario where Patrol members work hard to maintain a single timeline. Even if they fail, their preferred single timeline is simply replaced by an alternative single timeline, of which we are shown three. There is no simultaneous coexistence of multiple timelines but it is inhabitants of such timelines that visit the Old Phoenix.

The Time Patrol is hard sf whereas the Old Phoenix multiverse incorporates fantasies. The inn is chartered by "...some power unknown..." and could lose its license. (1) The landlord performs the only "Time Patrol" function that is necessary. He interrupts the conversation between Leonardo and Einstein when each is about to learn more than he should but he lets Valeria Matuchek inform Prince Rupert that, in her timeline, the English Civil War had led to regicide. Rupert prevents such an outcome in his timeline but it seems that he was supposed to do this so that no "harm" is done. In its single timeline, the Patrol must ensure that every atrocity happens on schedule.

(1) Anderson, Poul, "Losers' Night" IN Anderson, All One Universe, New York, 1997), pp. 108, 122.

The Graphic Poul Anderson?

I am imagining graphic adaptations of Poul Anderson's works. A prose novel can be adapted as a graphic novel but how about this in a monthly or bimonthly comic book format?

The Poul Anderson Fantasy Line would simultaneously serialise:

The Adventures of Holger Danske (Three Hearts And Three Lions);
The Adventures of a Witch and a Werewolf (the Matuchek series);
The Adventures of Prince Rupert of the Rhine (A Midsummer Tempest);
"Other Universes," which would show:

an alternative timeline ("The House of Sorrows");
travel between timelines ("Eutopia");
the inn between timelines (the two Old Phoenix stories);
Danske, Valeria Matuchek and Rupert meeting in the Old Phoenix (A Midsummer Tempest, xi and xii);
Valeria addressing a larger gathering in the Old Phoenix (A Midsummer Tempest, Epilogue).

One installment of "Prince Rupert" would end with Rupert and Will about to enter the Old Phoenix. The following installment would begin after they have left it. The reader would be referred to the appropriate installment of "Other Universes."

The Poul Anderson Science Fiction Line would simultaneously serialize:

Before the League (pre-Polesotechnic League stories);
The Polesotechnic League (stories contemporaneous with van Rijn, including the first two Falkayn stories and the first two Trader Team stories - van Rijn cameos in the first Trader Team story);
The Adventures of Nicholas van Rijn.

The third, fourth and fifth Trader Team stories, two of which are novels, also feature van Rijn so they would be crossovers. The short story, "Lodestar," easily divides into a Trader Team section which would be adapted in "The Polesotechnic League" and a van Rijn section, with him meeting the Team at the end, which would be adapted in "The Adventures..."

Graphic adaptations add visuals, thus are like a continuation of the book covers: van Rijn should look as he does on the cover of Baen Books The Van Rijn Method. Simultaneous serializations offer the extra dimension of reading connected works concurrently instead of consecutively.

Multiverse

Poul Anderson's inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, is the setting for:

"House Rule"
"Losers' Night"
A Midsummer Tempest, xi THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.
A Midsummer Tempest, xii LATER.
A MidsummerTempest, Epilogue THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.

In A Midsummer Tempest, the inn is a meeting place for:

Prince Rupert from the Shakespearean universe of the same novel;

Holger Carlsen from the Carolingian universe of Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions;

Valeria Matuchek from the magical universe of Anderson's Operation Chaos and Operation Luna.

In "House Rule," the inn is a meeting place for:

Nicholas van Rijn from the hard sf universe of Anderson's Technic History;
Sancho Panza from Don Quixote;
Erik the Red, possibly from our universe.

Other guests from our universe or nearer ones include:

the first person narrator of the two short stories;
Leonardo da Vinci;
Albert Einstein;
Heloise and Abelard;
Francois Villon;
Winston Churchill;
an unnamed but identifiable Irish political leader.

Anderson wrote that he hoped to return to the Old Phoenix again...

The inn could have provided a framing sequence for a collection of new stories to display each of the different genres that Anderson wrote. Neil Gaiman used his Inn of the Worlds' End as a Chaucerian venue.

Today, I have read in Latin Caesar's and Tacitus' accounts of the Druids and their resistance to Roman rule.

Again The Two Inns

In Poul Anderson's "Losers' Night," people from different historical periods converse in the Old Phoenix.

In Anderson's "House Rule" and A Midsummer Tempest, people from different histories converse in the Old Phoenix.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Worlds' End, people from different histories tell stories in the Inn of the Worlds' End. Thus, the Worlds' End sequences are both a framing device and an additional story.

In A Midsummer Tempest, the Old Phoenix is almost a framing device although it appears in the middle and at the end instead of at the beginning and the end.

Both series could have been extended indefinitely, the Old Phoenix as short stories, Worlds' End as very high quality monthly comic books, with some of the same historical characters visiting both.

Happy June.

Anderson, Blish And Gaiman

This blog compares Poul Anderson and James Blish as hard sf writers and future historians and Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman as fantasy writers. The main points of comparison are:

Anderson's History of Technic Civilization and Blish's Cities In Flight;

Anderson's Old Phoenix Inn in one novel and two short stories and Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End in The Sandman. 

The main differences are that the Technic History is complete in seven omnibus volumes whereas Cities In Flight is complete in a single omnibus volume and that Anderson's works are prose fiction whereas The Sandman is graphic fiction.

Since both the Old Phoenix and the Worlds' End assume a multiverse, they theoretically coexist with each other and Nicholas van Rijn from the Technic History shows up in the Old Phoenix. The Technic History and Cities In Flight are successors of Robert Heinlein's Future History and Rhysling from the Future History shows up in the Old Phoenix. Thus, we have quite a lot of literary unity here.

Versions

We know that alternative versions of historical figures and fictional characters can visit free houses like Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End and Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix. Thus, the Sherlock Holmes who visits the Old Phoenix is not necessarily identical with the Holmes who lives in the Time Patrol timeline. Indeed, the Patrol guarding a single mutable timeline and the Old Phoenix existing between many immutable timelines do not seem to belong in the same multiverse - although I postulate a megamultiverse with discrete zones that are not equally accessible.

Unlike Holmes, James Bond receives minimal treatment in Poul Anderson's works. He is mentioned just once as a fictional character in The Corridors Of Time although this would not prevent him from showing up in the Old Phoenix.

In other reading, I have discovered that there are not two but at least three versions of Bond:

the Bond of novels by Ian Fleming, Anthony Horowitz and maybe one or two others;

the Bond of the films plus some film novelizations;

the Bond of other additional novels that are more akin to the films.

I recommend Horowitz.

Introducing The Old Phoenix

A Midsummer Tempest, vii.

I am not going to get into the mythology of magic rings except to mention that Oberon and Titania give such rings to Rupert and Jennifer. I watched Wagner's Ring Cycle in its entirety on TV but only because it was possible to follow the story in the English subtitles.

Puck tells Rupert:

"'...to speak of inns and such - My friend, if sorely pressed for shelter, think of this. There is a tavern known as the old Phoenix, which none may see or enter who're not touched by magic in some way. It flits about, but maybe ye can use his ring to find it, or even draw a door toward yourselves....'" (pp. 55-56)

This is the first mention of the Old Phoenix. See also:

First Appearances And First Meetings
Notes On "House Rule"
A Midsummer Tempest X.

Anderson wrote:

"That inn beyond every world, the Old Phoenix, first appeared in my Shakespearean fantasy novel A Midsummer Tempest. Elsewhere I have acknowledged 'its relationship to works by John Kendrick Bangs, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Hendrik Willem van Loon, Lord Dunsany, Edmond Hamilton, and others, as well as the origin of all in a common daydream.'"
-Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, The Armies Of Elfland (New York, 1992), pp. 64-76 AT p. 64.

There is much scope for googling here but this time I will leave it to blog readers. John Kendrick Bangs wrote about a Houseboat on the Styx which Alan Moore incorporated into his Promethea series. (Scroll down.)