# Book Titles that reference other Literature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2007, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336 "2007-03-17T14:23:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/1 "2007-03-17T14:23:39Z")
At least two recent threads, [Really Clever Titles](http://208.100.26.199/sdmb/showthread.php?t=412650&highlight=titles) and [Songs that quote lines from other songs](http://208.100.26.199/sdmb/showthread.php?t=412021) have made me curious how many book titles are borrowed from other literary works. Ernest Hemingway has some I already know about. _For Whom The Bell Tolls_ is taken directly from a John Donne poem which is described in [this Wikipedia article on the book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls). And [The Sun Also Rises](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises) is from the Bible. There may be another source beyond _The Battle Hymn of the Republic_ for Steinbeck’s [The Grapes of Wrath](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapes_of_wrath#Explanation_of_the_novel.27s_title), but at least there’s another that borrows from the “literature” of a song. Many book titles have the feel of something borrowed or slightly reworded. How many can you think of that you know where the title is taken from? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/2 "2007-03-17T14:38:59Z")
Christy Brown’s autobiography [My Left Foot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Left_Foot_%28book%29) (later a Daniel Day Lewis film) references a line from Shakespeare, if I am not mistaken. (_Romeo and Juliet_, maybe?) Faulkner’s **The Sound and the Fury** references Shakespeare’s _Macbeth_: _Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, **full of sound and fury** , Signifying nothing._ ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/3 "2007-03-17T14:46:41Z")
I may be mistaken about _My Left Foot_. I just did a search of Shakespeare and couldn’t find the phrase. I could have sworn I heard it pop up in a Shakespeare play. Maybe it was in something else. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/4 "2007-03-17T14:47:34Z")
_To Say Nothing of the Dog_, which is a hilarious time travel novel by Connie Willis and the first Hugo winner to be _intentionally_ funny, riffs off _Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog_ by Jerome K. Jerome, also a hilarious book. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/5 "2007-03-17T14:49:39Z")
Good ones, **spoke-**. Here are some titles that may or may not be borrowings, but they surely do have that feel: As I Lay Dying East of Eden (from _Genesis_ if I remember right: “and Adam went and dwelt…”) The Halls of Montezuma (was this ever a book title? I know it’s a movie and was taken from The Marine’s Hymn) All Quiet On The Western Front It won’t bother me if movie titles are included – especially if their source is some other work of literature – whether or not they came from a book title per se. Possibilities: Never So Few Some Came Running ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/6 "2007-03-17T14:57:25Z")
_Something Wicked This Way Comes_ (Bradbury) is from Shakespeare (the witches in MacBeth?). _Stranger in a Strange Land_ (Heinlein) is from the Bible (Exodus). Come to think of it, we could probably get a whole thread’s worth of titles from Shakespeare and another whole thread’s worth from the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/7 "2007-03-17T14:57:26Z")
Gone with the Wind was taken from a poem - I want to say Whitman, but I could be wrong. Most of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books and Nursery Crime series take their titles from all kinds of literary sources - The Eyre Affair, Something Rotten, The Big Overeasy (Humpty Dumpty), etc. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/8 "2007-03-17T15:03:50Z")
[As I Lay Dying](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_i_lay_dying) ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/9 "2007-03-17T15:10:26Z")
**Brave New World** is from **The Tempest** (“Oh Brave New World, that has such people in it”). Hard to think of ones that _aren’t_ from Shakespeare or the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/10 "2007-03-17T15:10:48Z")
[QUOTE=Katriona] Most of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books and Nursery Crime series take their titles from all kinds of literary sources - The Eyre Affair, Something Rotten, The Big Overeasy (Humpty Dumpty), etc. [/QUOTE] This reminds of James Patterson’s books featuring Alex Cross, many of which have become movies, and most of which are from nursery rhymes, which I guess fall under the umbrella of “literature”: Kiss the Girls Along Came A Spider Pop Goes the Weasel When the Wind Blows See How They Run ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/11 "2007-03-17T15:20:14Z")
Steinbeck’s **Of Mice and Men** is taken from the Robert Burns poem [To a Mouse (On turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785)](http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/554.htm): \*…But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes **o’ mice an’ men** Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!.. \* ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/12 "2007-03-17T15:22:22Z")
Ed McBain’s Matthew Hope mysteries: \*\*Goldilocks Rumpelstiltskin Beauty And The Beast Jack And The Beanstalk Snow White And Rose Red Cinderella Puss In Boots The House That Jack Built Three Blind Mice Mary, Mary There Was A Little Girl Gladly The Cross-Eyed Bear The Last Best Hope \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/13 "2007-03-17T15:29:38Z")
Hemingway’s **The Sun Also Rises** references Ecclesiastes 1:5 “_The sun also ariseth_.” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/14 "2007-03-17T15:32:45Z")
While we’re at it, aside from the Bible what classic would be the most borrowed from without itself having borrowed from a still older work? I would suspect Homer’s works. Can you think of something older still? And to elaborate the notion, are there classics from other cultures beyond the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews that have provided significant borrowings? Things like Egyptian classics, Teutonic myths, Eastern Indian writings, Chinese or Japanese or Korean literature. Do Australian Aborigine legends ever get to the printed page? And, if so, do Down Under authors refer to those legends? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/15 "2007-03-17T15:41:52Z")
Stephen King’s **The Dark Tower** comes from Robert Browning’s poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, which is itself a literary allusion to a very old English fairy tale that was referenced in _King Lear_. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/16 "2007-03-17T15:47:05Z")
[QUOTE=Zeldar] Do Australian Aborigine legends ever get to the printed page? And, if so, do Down Under authors refer to those legends? [/QUOTE] The author Robert Louis Nathan had a 1975 novel titled **The Dreamtime**. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/17 "2007-03-17T15:52:42Z")
Philip Jose Farmer took the title of his science fiction classic To Your Scattered Bodies Go from a John Donne sonnet titled “\At the round earth’s imagined corners\ (Holy Sonnet No. VII),” in the first stanza: At the round earth’s imagined corners blow your trumpets, angels and arise from death you numberless infinities of souls and to your scattered bodies go! One of many titles borrowed from Donne’s work, judging by this thread. He was quite a phrasemaker. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/18 "2007-03-17T15:54:40Z")
Woody Allen’s book of short stories, “Without Feathers”, is a play on the Emily Dickinson line, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/19 "2007-03-17T16:06:51Z")
_A Confederacy of Dunces_ refers to [Swift](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces). > [@](#): > > The title derives from the book’s epigraph by Jonathan Swift: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/20 "2007-03-17T16:26:04Z")
Patrick Neilsen Haden once said that when an author is stuck for a title, he can always take something from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” **World Enough and Time** has been used several times, most notably by Robert Penn Warren. Ursula K. Leguin used the phrase “Vaster than Empires and More Slow” from it for a short story, a Peter S. Beagle and Ellery Queen used **A Fine and Private Place**. James Tiptree, Jr. used “And I Awake to Find Me Here on the Cold Hill Side” as a title from Keats “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” Asimov’s **The Gods Themselves** comes from a quote from Schiller: “Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain.” The books three sections are titled for the three parts of the quote. Charles Sheffield’s “Georgia on My Mind” is named after the song. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336.md?page=2)