History WhereTheHellIsSpringfield / Literature

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this trope in the very first line: "In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to recall…" Scholars have deduced that the village is Argamasilla de Alba, where author Miguel de Cervantes was imprisoned for a time (and where he began to write the novel) – no surprise he had no desire to recall the place. The last chapter suggests that InUniverse, not revealing Don Quixote's hometown would allow all the villages of La Mancha to compete for the right to be hometown.

* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' is up-front with the characters saying that they “can’t let you know who we are, or where we live.” The last book does say [[spoiler:that they live in California, somewhere around Santa Barbara]], but there are earlier hints as to that location, such as the region’s geography and the conveniently nearby zoo/theme park "The Gardens".

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' is unclear on the orphans’ location, hometown, country, or [[RetroUniverse time period]] during any of the books. There are vague “hints” at being set in the U.S., the [[CreatorProvincialism author’s home country]].

* ''Literature/JohnDiesAtTheEnd'' is set in the town of "Undisclosed", with the only information ever given about it being that it's somewhere in the American Midwest. Before the book was published, the town was Rockville, but fans took this to mean it was set in the real town of Rockford, Illinois, so it had to be changed. The AlternateRealityGame on the website suggests that it’s Cairo, IL, based on photos of the town and multiple references to the Egyptian city of the same name.
* Most of Creator/CharlesDeLint's stories are set in the city of Newford, whose location has never been stated. It’s not even clear if it’s in Canada or the United States, although the author does live in Ontario.
* Creator/JoseSaramago's novels ''Literature/{{Blindness}}'', ''Seeing'', ''Death with Interruptions'' and ''All The Names'' are all set in undefined cities and even countries. It’s a safe bet they take place in Portugal, even though the unnamed country in ''Death with Interruptions'' is a monarchy.
* ''Literature/WithoutBlood'' by Alessandro Baricco includes a note at the beginning stating that this trope was used intentionally so as to universalize the story. Spanish character names are used “due to their music” and do not indicate a Spanish setting.

* ''Literature/WickedLovely'' is often presumed to be in Pennsylvania, but it is never actually stated where Huntsdale is, although it’s clearly American. Melissa Marr stated that this was intentional in an interview, wanting it to be a kind of EverytownAmerica. Leslie hopping on a train to Pittsburgh in Ink Exchange does give it a bit of a radius.

* The novel series of ''Literature/{{Sandokan}}'' has a strange example that borders in real life. Author Emilio Salgari tried to base every location on a real place, but sometimes the maps he used were inaccurate or based on conjecture. Sandokan’s base on the island of Mompracem is based on an island on an old map that can’t be found on modern maps; although Keraman is a good candidate for its location, it’s mentioned in the books as a completely separate island. At least one location was a lake that was only theorized to exist, only discovered not to be there after Salgari’s death, and then ''dug up'' by UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire years later.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' continuum, one of the very early books (when they were “straight” parodies of mainline fantasy fiction) has an author’s foreword by Creator/TerryPratchett reading, “This book contains no maps. If this disturbs or offends you, feel free to go and draw one of your own.” Fans did, for a while; one became canon about thirty books in, but this hasn’t stopped [[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Talk:Book:The_Discworld_Mapp all manner of arguments]] about specific locations.
* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this trope in the very first line: “In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to recall…” Scholars have deduced that the village is Argamasilla de Alba, where author Miguel de Cervantes was imprisoned for a time (and where he began to write the novel) – no surprise he had no desire to recall the place. The last chapter suggests that InUniverse, not revealing Don Quixote’s hometown would allow all the villages of La Mancha to compete for the right to be hometown
* In the Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid series, the city and state where Greg Heffley and his family live in is never revealed, although most clues point to it being somewhere on the upper east coast, most likely in either New York or Massachusetts.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' is up-front with the characters saying that they “can’t let you know who we are, or where we live.” The last book does say [[spoiler:that they live in California, somewhere around Santa Barbara]], but there are earlier hints as to that location, such as the region’s geography and the conveniently nearby zoo/theme park “The Gardens”.

* ''Literature/JohnDiesAtTheEnd'' is set in the town of “Undisclosed”, with the only information ever given about it being that it's somewhere in the American Midwest. Before the book was published, the town was Rockville, but fans took this to mean it was set in the real town of Rockford, Illinois, so it had to be changed. The AlternateRealityGame on the website suggests that it’s Cairo, IL, based on photos of the town and multiple references to the Egyptian city of the same name.
* Most of Creator/CharlesDeLint’s stories are set in the city of Newford, whose location has never been stated. It’s not even clear if it’s in Canada or the United States, although the author does live in Ontario.

* In the Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid series, where Greg and his family live in is never revealed, although most clues point to it being somewhere on the upper east coast.

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this trope in the very first line: “In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to recall…” Scholars have deduced that the village is Argamasilla de Alba, where author Miguel de Cervantes was imprisoned for a time (and where he began to write the novel) – no surprise he had no desire to recall the place. The last chapter suggests that InUniverse, not revealing Don Quixote’s hometown would allow all the villages of La Mancha to compete for the right to be his hometown in legend.

* M. T. Anderson's ''Literature/{{Feed}}'' is set somewhere in America, but apart from that the only clues are that it is not ''too'' far from the ocean. The problem with pinning down location is that the book is set in the future, so the modern indications don't quite fit.

* Blackbury in multiple Creator/TerryPratchett works. It's ''possibly'' OopNorth, given the similarity to "Blackburn", and the TV adaptation of ''Literature/JohnnyAndTheBomb'' went with that. On the other hand, Sir Terry's own stomping ground was the South-West, and in particular, one might expect that its early appearances in the children's page of ''The Bucks Free Press'' would be based on locations the children of Buckinghamshire would be familiar with. Confusing things further, the ''Literature/NomesTrilogy'' was originally set in the real town of Grimsby, North-East Lincolnshire (which is either Oop North or UsefulNotes/TheMidlands) before being {{Orwellian Retcon}}ned to Blackbury. The ''Bucks Free Press'' stories sometimes say it's in "Gritshire", which doesn't tell us much, and that it's near "Even Moor" ... but Britain is ''covered'' in moorland, so that doesn't help much either.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', the exact location of Hogwarts is never stated, and the school is stated to be under a spell that makes it impossible to put on a map. Most fans have placed its location in Scotland--it's the only place in mainland Britain that would take all day to get to by train from London, and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets Muggles in Scottish towns see Harry and Ron flying a car to Hogwarts]]--but beyond that, its exact location in Scotland is unknown. Some fans have instead taken the MST3KMantra route given the previous statement that it's under a spell that makes it impossible to be placed on a map.