The word "library" can provoke a strong reflex reaction. If you doubt this, ask a few people, "How would you feel to be locked inside a library overnight?" While some might register indifference, the more likely reactions would range from "I've already had that nightmare" to "As long as I had lights and access to the stacks, great!"

General stereotypes about libraries are plentiful and far-flung, often a residue of bad childhood memories of institutional facilities. Many view the library as a stuffy, gloomy, sanctimonious, intentionally confusing mausoleum of old, useless tracts and passing fads. Other, quainter souls perceive the library as a warm, tranquil oasis of endless possibilities or as a private collection of relished treasures.

This anthology will take a different approach to the image of the library, focusing on the variety and range of reactions to libraries filtered through the imagination of the fiction writer over the centuries. To illustrate the extensive span of thought in a relatively short volume, we have included works from many disciplines—from reality to the fantastic.
(from the introduction by Eric Greaber)

Edited by Eric Graeber

Contents:

• excerpt from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• excerpt from "The Battle of the Books" by Jonathan Swift
• excerpt from Candide by Voltaire
• excerpt from The Mutability of Literature by Washington Irving
• excerpt from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
• excerpt from Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
• excerpt from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• excerpt from The Library & the Librarian by Edmund Lester Pearson
• excerpt from Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
• excerpt from Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
• The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
• excerpt from Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• excerpt from The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• excerpt from "The Library Policeman" by Stephen King
• Hold for Arrival by Donald Olson
• excert from The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken
• excerpt from The Library by Rev. George Crabbe