Questions tagged [setting]
Questions regarding the physical location and time period in which a work of literature takes place.
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Where is the setting of "A Hawk in Silver" based on?
The sci-fi/fantasy author Mary Gentle's first novel, A Hawk in Silver, is set in the small town of 'Surcombe' on the south coast of England. Although Surcombe is fictional, the description of it is so ...
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Where is Kafka's "The Trial" set?
The novel The Trial by Franz Kafka contains many deliberate omissions of information: for example, the main character's surname and the names of several other characters, the nature of his crime, and ...
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Are the location inspirations clear from the text of Swallows & Amazons?
Swallows and Amazons, the first book of the eponymous series of children's classics, as well as many of the later books in the series, is set in and around a lake in the Lake District of England. I ...
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Vonnegut's "Address at Rededication of Wheaton College Library, 1973"
This essay was published in (perhaps among other places) in "Wampeters Foma and Granfalloons". There are two Wheaton Colleges in the U.S., one in Norton MA and the other in Wheaton IL. Does anyone ...
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Are any of the countries in Hard to Be a God based specifically on particular real-life countries?
Arkanar, Irukan, Soan, ... there are several countries mentioned and given at least some description and fleshing out in the book. Are any of these intended to be direct parallels of specific real-...
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Do Holmes and Challenger coinhabit the same fictional world?
Doyle published The Lost World well after both killing off and reviving Sherlock Holmes. He wrote about Professor Challenger and Holmes concurrently for about fourteen years, and continued to write ...
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Where is the start of Treasure Island set?
Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel Treasure Island opens somewhere in Britain, at and around the Admiral Benbow inn. Where exactly is this meant to be?
It seems to be relatively near to Bristol, ...
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What does its future setting add to Cold Comfort Farm?
Cold Comfort Farm is set gently but irresistibly a decade or two after its original publishing date, with video phones and the Anglo-Nicaraguan War of '46 and so forth.
However, setting the action in ...
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Can W.G. Sebald's walks in "The Rings of Saturn" be traced?
In W.G. Sebald's 1995 novel The Rings of Saturn, the author describes different walks he takes. In some paragraphs, he describes the paths he takes very carefully, while in others he only mentions ...
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Why Did Doyle Choose 221B Baker Street?
221B Baker Street. One of the most famous addresses in literature. But why?
Was there any reason Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose this particular address as the residence of his famous protagonist? Did ...
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Why don't the Assassin's Creed novels include present day events?
The Assassin's Creed games mostly have a present-day component, where the protagonist's descendent enters the Animus, reliving the protagonist's life. Since this is merely replaying memories, we don't ...
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Where are the white folks in The Expanse?
I'm three books (and three short stories) into Corey's "The Expanse" series, and I've noticed an interesting trend.
When Corey describes the ethnicity and inherited culture of individual characters ...
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Could you actually go around the world in 80 days?
Around the World in 80 Days is a novel be Jules Verne about an Englishman who makes a bet with some fellow club members that he can travel around the world in 80 days.
Nowadays with modern flight, ...
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Is The Lord of the Flies set on a real island?
It is a well-known fact that the author of Lord of the Flies William Golding was an officer in the Royal Navy, and that some of the sights he saw inspired him to write Lord of the Flies.
The boys are ...
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Is the location of the land of the Houyhnhnms significant?
As seen from the below map from the Wikipedia article, which is identical to the version of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, which I own, the land of the Houyhnhnms is directly below what we now ...
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When do the events in The Valley of Fear take place?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's final Sherlock Holmes novel, "The Valley of Fear", is notable for being the only story other than the short story The Final Problem where Professor Moriarty plays a direct ...
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Is there significance to the location of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels?
If we look at the map, we can conclude that Lilliput is in the Indian Ocean. Is there any significance to its location in the Indian Ocean? What is that significance, if any?
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Is Strattenburg, Pennsylvania based on a real town?
The Theodore Boone book series by John Grisham takes place in the fictional town of Strattenburg, Pennsylvania. Is Strattenburg, Pennsylvania based on a real town?
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Is there a canonical map of Thomas Hardy's Wessex?
Most if not all of Thomas Hardy's novels are set in the fictional(ish) English region of Wessex. He uses many real towns and locations as settings, but gives them fictional names: for instance, Oxford ...
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