History UnreliableNarrator / Literature

* In Raymond Smullyan's ''What is the Name of This Book?'', the solution to several of the KnightsAndKnaves puzzles is that, because the clues contradict each other (or themselves), the author or storyteller must be lying.

* Nokko in ''Literature/MagicalGirlRaisingProject Restart'' is one of the main POV characters, yet she somehow manages to avoid mentioning that [[spoiler:she's the Evil King who is supposed to kill everyone else in the game until it's revealed.]]

** Played with. After describing Carmilla's private displays of affection to her (like embracing her, kissing her cheek, and whispering confessions of love in her ear), Laura (relating the story ten years after the fact) emphasizes that Carmilla's behavior and words were incomprehensible and embarrassing to her, and that she wished to extricate herself from Carmilla's "foolish embraces", though at the same time she somehow lacked the power to resist them. She also says that at these occasions she felt "a strange tumultuous excitement", and also that, after such a long time, she only has a "confused [...] recollection of certain occurrences and situations". This lack of remembrance she justifies with the conjecture that "in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most vividly and terribly roused, that are of all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered", which doesn't quite explain why Laura's emotions are so "terribly roused" by Carmilla's embraces. In the same passage Laura also says that she was "conscious of a love growing into adoration", an ambiguous expression that could refer to both Carmilla's love for Laura, but also Laura's love for Carmilla. Taking furthermore into account that the words "excitement" and "passion" both also have a sexual sense, it cannot be ruled out that Laura feigns lack of recollection to conceal that she was sexually aroused by Carmilla, and that the "occurrences" between Carmilla and Laura did not stop at embraces and kisses on the cheek.

** Played with. After describing Carmilla's private displays of affection to her (like embracing her, kissing her cheek, and whispering confessions of love in her ear), Laura (relating the story ten years after the fact) emphasizes that Carmilla's behavior and words were incomprehensible and embarrassing to her, and that she wished to extricate herself from Carmilla's "foolish embraces", though at the same she somehow lacked the power to resist them. She also says that at these occasions she felt "a strange tumultuous excitement", and also that, after such a long time, she only has a "confused [...] recollection of certain occurrences and situations". This lack of remembrance she justifies with the conjecture that "in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most vividly and terribly roused, that are of all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered", which doesn't quite explain why Laura's emotions are so "terribly roused" by Carmilla's embraces. In the same passage Laura also says that she was "conscious of a love growing into adoration", an ambiguous expression that could refer to both Carmilla's love for Laura, but also Laura's love for Carmilla. Taking furthermore into account that the words "excitement" and "passion" both also have a sexual sense, it cannot be ruled out that Laura feigns lack of recollection to conceal that she was sexually aroused by Carmilla, and that the "occurrences" between Carmilla and Laura did not stop at embraces and kisses on the cheek.

** Played with. After describing Carmilla's private displays of affection to her (like embracing her, kissing her cheek, and whispering confessions of love in her ear), Laura (relating the story ten years after the fact) emphasizes that Carmilla's behavior and words were incomprehensible and embarrassing to her, and that she wished to extricate herself from Carmilla's "foolish embraces", though at the same she somehow lacked the power to resist them. She also says that at these occasions she felt "a strange tumultuous excitement", and also that, after such a long time, she only has a "confused [...] recollection of certain occurrences and situations". This lack of remembrance she justifies with the conjecture that "in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most vividly and terribly roused, that are of all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered", which doesn't quite explain why Laura's emotions are so "terribly roused" by Carmilla's embraces. In the same passage Laura also says that she was "conscious of a love growing into adoration", an ambiguous expression that could refer to both Carmilla's love for Laura, but also Laura's love for Carmilla. Taking furthermore into account that the words "excitement" and "passion" both also have a sexual sense, it cannot be ruled out that Laura feigns lack of recollection to conceal that she was sexually aroused by Carmilla's carresses, and that the "occurrences" between Carmilla and Laura did not stop at embraces and kisses on the cheek.

* ''Literature/{{Carmilla}}'': In the opening chapter, Laura emphasizes how very lonely and "solitary" the ''schloss'' is, describing it as situated in the middle of an extensive forest, and at seven miles distance from the nearest village, thus giving the impression that the ''schloss'' is the only human habitation for miles around. But over the course of her narration it becomes clear that there are people living in the surrounding area, some of them close by, as is shown by Laura and Carmilla watching a funeral procession passing by only a short walk from the ''schloss'', and her father visiting a sick peasant "only a mile away"; indeed the "small estate" linked to the ''schloss'' implies the presence of tenants who work on the estate. Laura perceives the ''schloss'' as impossibly remote and "lonely" because she is almost entirely isolated from the people who live in the vicinity (like peasants, woodcutters, and forest rangers) by distinctions of class, and possibly also religion.[[note]]Austria used to be overwhelmingly Catholic, Laura and her English father may well be Anglican Protestants.[[/note]]

** In the first three books, we only see Daenerys through her own point of view, and she sees her exploits in Essos as those of a saviour who's liberating slaves. In the fifth book, we see her from the point of view of Barristan, who is still willing to follow her, but is starting to question some of her actions, and Quentyn, who perceives her ruling as the closest thing to hell on Earth he's ever seen. It will be interesting to see her from Tyrion's point of view when they finally meet...

* ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'': It is theorized by several readers that because Coraline is such a Fractured Fairytale, it may very well be from the imagination of the young girl, attempting to cope with her boredom and loneliness, which appears more apparent in the novella than in the film.

!!In General:
* This is the main trope of the [[TheMunchausen Baron Munchausen]] stories, both in the original 18th century novel or in any of the various later pastiches. The stories were based on the actual Baron Munchausen, who became popular in 18th century Germany for regaling his friends and guests with humorous tall tales of his exploits.

* ''Literature/TheSagaOfTheFaroeIslanders'': On the day Thorhall the Rich is murdered, the narration informs us that Sigurd Thorlaksson--now Thorhall's top enforcer and also lover of Thorhall's wife Birna--spends the day out of house, being "busy about some work and doing what he thought needed doing". In the evening Sigurd comes home and, expressing surprise that Thorhall is not at the dinner table, looks for him and finds his dead body in his bedroom. Immediately Sigurd infers that the merchant Bjarngrim must have killed Thorhall because of the run-in they had earlier that winter; accordingly Sigurd, Thord and Gaut run to Bjarngrim's ship and kill Bjarngrim and his two brothers (and also seize their cargo). Though "[i]t seems to [Sigurd] that he has properly avenged Thorhall", "ill talk went round about Sigurd and all three kinsmen over the death of Thorhall"--pointing to the obvious possibility that Sigurd murdered Thorhall himself and killed Bjarngrim as a scapegoat. This would mean that Sigurd was not actually away from the farm for the whole day, but that he secretly returned to the farm to murder Thorhall.

* One of the central conceits of Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/GeorgeAndAzaze" short stories is that they're being told to an AuthorAvatar of Asimov by an Unreliable Narrator who may or may not just be making them up entirely.

* One of the central conceits of Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Azazel" short stories is that they're being told to an AuthorAvatar of Asimov by an Unreliable Narrator who may or may not just be making them up entirely.

* Saleem Sinai of ''Literature/MidnightsChildren'' is also an example, though one that is more lighthearted than most. He can be very open about his mistakes, and occassionaly presents them as genuine mistakes (like [[spoiler: the year Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated]], or [[spoiler: [[ArchNemesis Shiva of the Knees]] being assassinated by a former mistress in prison]] (the latter of which, by the way, he admits to making up [[PlayedForLaughs two pages after the fact]]. It does, however, leave the possibility that there's more to the story that is invented...

** One section of [[Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy the radio series]], involving Zaphod's incredible escape from a particularly nasty fate, is explicitly based on Zaphod's own account. It begins:

** Frodo in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is somewhat of an UnreliableNarrator himself, or at least he has a few in-universe examples of BeamMeUpScotty:

* ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'' is narrated by Mello. He is biased in favor of L, having been raised to be his successor, and states openly that he sympathizes in some ways with B, because both he and B are AlwaysSecondBest. Also, Mello is telling a story that he heard from L, who heard the details from Naomi, so Mello is filling in a lot of blanks he couldn't possibly know. (He lampshades this too, giving a ShoutOut to the above-mentioned [[Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye Holden Caulfield]], calling him "The greatest literary bullshitter of all time.")
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'':

* H. G. Wells' ''Literature/WarOfTheWorlds'' makes more sense if we doubt the narrator's reliability. A progressive-minded Victorian, he is dazzled by the Martians' technology, and sees them as embodying the naïve popular view that humans were "evolving" towards beings of pure brain without "animal" functions like eating. He constantly describes them as coldly brilliant superminds, whereas their actual behaviour -- their rampaging vandalism, their unpreparedness for Earth's seas, and, of course, their fatal ignorance of Biology 101 -- suggests a bunch of dumb adventurers with guns running wild among helpless primitives. Given that Wells's known intention was to show the British how it would feel to be the savages they were busy conquering, this misguided admiration may be exactly the effect he intended.

*** Harry does ''not'' like Johnny Marcone, and is very quick to attribute nefarious and evil intent even to the most innocuous of Marcone's actions. Marcone is not good guy by any stretch of the imagination, but not a straight-up villain either. In fact, on a good day Marcone could qualify as an UnscrupulousHero or NominalHero, which only complicates matters for both Harry and the reader.

* ''Literature/{{Carmilla}}'': In the opening chapter, Laura emphasizes how very lonely and "solitary" the ''schloss'' is, describing it as situated in the middle of an extensive forest, and at seven miles distance from the nearest village, thus giving the impression that the ''schloss'' is the only human habitation for miles around. But over the course of her narration it becomes clear that there are people living in the surrounding area, some of them close by, as is shown by Laura and Carmilla watching a funeral procession passing by only a short walk from the schloss, and her father visiting a sick peasant "only a mile away"; indeed the "small estate" linked to the ''schloss'' implies the presence of tenants who work on the estate. Laura perceives the ''schloss'' as impossibly remote and "lonely" because she is almost entirely isolated from the people who live in the vicinity (like peasants, woodcutters, and forest rangers) by distinctions of class, and possibly also religion.[[note]]Austria used to be overwhelmingly Catholic, Laura and her English father may well be Anglican Protestants.[[/note]]