History Main / FictionalDocument

** ''Literature/Liar1941'': The first few books Dr Calvin gives [[AffectionateNickname Herbie]] are textbooks such as ''Theory of Hyperatomics''. After telling her that he prefers fiction, she starts giving him books like ''Purple Passion'' and ''Love in Space''.
** "Literature/TheImaginary": ''Helo's Tables of Time Integrals'' is a mathematics book similar to the real life ''CRC Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulae'' or ''Standard Four-Figure Mathematical Tables''. Lor Haridin uses ''Helo's'' to look up complicated mathematics answers.
---> "You look 'em up in a table, taking half an hour to find the proper entry, and they give you seventeen possible answers. You have to pick the one that makes sense, and - Arcturus help me! - either they all do, or none do! Run up against eight of them, as we do in this problem, and we've got enough permutations to last us the rest of our life." --- '''Lor Haridin'''

* The Others from the ''Literature/NightWatch'' series have The Great Treaty between Light and Darkness, which restricted the century-old bloodshed between the Light Ones and the Dark Ones, regularized the relations between the two factions and stipulated formation and functioning of the Watches.

* ''Webcomic/UnwindersTallComics'' are ''loaded'' with fictional books. Unwinder is a fan of the ''After Dark'' series, a [[Literature/{{Twilight}} romance novels involving zombies who are actually super-attractive athletes who can also fly]], as well as the remarkably dull sci-fi {{doorstopper}}s of Gary P. Rastov. Excerpts from all of these are provided, of course.\\
The author even parodies his use of this trope, by having Unwinder [[StoryWithinAStory write his own webcomic]], with said webcomic featuring its own, uniquely dull, fictional novel: ''The Gun and the Grapes'', which cranks NarrativeFiligree up to eleven. Back in the main comic, a reader is unimpressed by Unwinder's metafiction.
-->'''Amy:''' I can't really tell what you're going for here. ... You invented an intentionally boring author and provided an intentionally boring prose sample. Mission accomplished. Now why should I care?\\
'''Unwinder:''' There's... there's a certain audience for this.

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' has [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-08-16 a copy of the journal of the wizard]] who enchanted the [[MineralMacGuffin Dewitchery Diamond]].
* The ''Pridelands'' novels from ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'', an epic ''Game of Thrones''-esque series with various big cat species, written specifically to appeal to cats in a universe where all animals are anthropomorphised and sentient. It turns out that this is partly because it was written by a cat. Grape and Maxwell are stated fans of the series, and given their discussions of it, it appears to have a very complicated mythos. Peanut takes an interest as well, and several of the other dogs admit to have found '[[BlatantLies only a couple of bits of it]]' interesting.

All the books, magazines, and newspapers that exist only within a fictional world, from the [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Necronomicon]] to the mysteries of [[Series/MurderSheWrote Jessica Fletcher]]. They are more common in SpeculativeFiction, but not restricted to it.

They serve two main narrative purposes: verisimilitude and {{exposition}}. Jessica is supposed to be an author; it would be bizarre if no trace of the books she writes existed. Reading the Necronomicon may [[GoMadFromTheRevelation frighten the protagonist half to death]], but it also gives the reader an idea of the {{backstory}}.

Fictional documents are also used to [[LampshadeHanging comment]] [[ConversationalTroping on]] literary tropes, and as aids to characterisation. Characters comparing their own predicament with their favourite book can get very sarcastic about [[ThisIsReality how unrealistic]] it was, while few things so embarrass the ActionGirl as having her little brother read aloud a few choice passages from her favourite {{romance|Novel}}. Sometimes, however, you may just have to TakeOurWordForIt.

If your story is made entirely of Fictional Documents, it's a ScrapbookStory (so please list it there rather than here); if the {{paratext}} quotes from these, it's quoting the EncyclopediaExposita. And if the story ''itself'' appears in the story, it's RecursiveCanon. If it merely claims to have been written by a character within the setting, it probably falls under DirectLineToTheAuthor. In VideoGames, they are almost always used as FlavorText.

'''Lister:''' Well... no.\\

** ''Shall There Ever Be Another Rainbow?'', C. Montgomery Burns' touching autobiography.

* The ''WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner'' short "Stop! Look! and Hasten!" has Wile E. follow the instructions provided by the book ''How To Build A Burmese Tiger Trap.'' The resulting pit proves to be very effective.. if you are hoping to catch [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a Burmese tiger.]]

* VideoGame/MetalGearSolid has a few books mentioned in the game. Most notably one called "In the Darkness of Shadow Moses", a novelization of the events of the first game which is available to read on the main menu of [=MGS2=].
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

-->'''Double H''': CAARRRLSONNN AAAND PEEETERRRRS! [[DropTheHammer -Whack!-]]

** Shauntal of the Unova Elite Four is shown to be a writer -- however, none of her books have so far been named. A Fairy Girl in ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' is said to have enjoyed her new novel, though.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' features ''Ninjas of Love'', implied to be a doujinshi.

* The PokeDex of the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' series, in both Regional and National forms. A digital encyclopedia that updates itself with every Pokemon you see and catch, providing various flavour text and data for each species. Most Pokemon Professors appear to have their own version.

** Shauntel of the Unova Elite Four is shown to be a writer - however, none of her books have so far been named. A Fairy Girl in ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' is said to have enjoyed her new novel, though.

** ''Mr. Bunnsy has an Adventure'', a Beatrix Potter pastiche from Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents''

** Some of the books even become important plot devices, like ''[[Discworld/GuardsGuards The Summoning of Dragons]]'' (slightly foxed and heavily dragoned), ''[[Discworld/InterestingTimes What I Did on My Holidays]]'', and [[Discworld/TheTruth the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork]].

* One of the many details of the final draft script of ''Film/StarWars'' that didn't make it into the finished cut of the movie [[note]]Along with the scene where Luke's friend Biggs (who was killed in the Death Star attack) was introduced and a large amount of George Lucas's legendarily awful dialogue that was script-doctored out of existence[[/note]] but preserved in Creator/AlanDeanFoster's novelization was the ''Journal of the Whills'', which seems to have been intended as a history of the Empire and its collapse. This does get a few sly references in the movies, especially the prequels; it's amazing how awesome [[UnreliableNarrator R2-D2]] (who supposedly told the story to the Willis) gets when nobody's looking...

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/CatchThatRabbit": Gregory Powell always keeps a copy of the ''Handbook of Robotics'' nearby. A NoodleIncident is referenced where he would've ran out of a burning building naked rather than lose his copy.

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If your story is made entirely of Fictional Documents, it's a ScrapbookStory (so please list it there rather than here); if the {{paratext}} quotes from these, it's quoting the EncyclopediaExposita. And if the story ''itself'' appears in the story, it's RecursiveCanon. If it merely claims to have been written by a character within the setting, it probably falls under the LiteraryAgentHypothesis. In VideoGames, they are almost always used as FlavorText.

** In the Literature/CiaphasCain novels, [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis Amberley Vail]] uses extracts from other sources to fill in the blanks left by Cain's self-centered account. These include the PurpleProse-filled memoirs of a future general in his unit, histories of varying accuracy, travel guides, and even a children's book about promethium.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has numerous fictional documents that are quoted in cards' flavor text and in some of the novels and comics. Some of the notable ones include ''The Antiquities War'', an epic poem about the Brothers' War that the comics and novel are [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis supposedly based on]]; ''Sarpadian Empires'', whose first six volumes are quoted in Fallen Empires flavor text and whose seventh volume was printed as a card in Time Spiral; and ''The Underworld Cookbook'', which is only quoted on three cards (one of which is from the self-parody expansion Unhinged), but whose author's name, Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, is the longest word ever to appear on a Magic card. ''The Love Song of Night and Day'' actually exists and was written as part of the world-building for the Mirage expansion, and can be read [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/145 here.]]

** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' uses it via its LiteraryAgentHypothesis: at least ''Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue'' and every ''Volo's Guide to [blank]'' are supposed to be "actual" books printed on Toril, and some others, like ''Elminster's Ecologies'' mostly consists of various in-'verse {{exposition}} texts.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' has ''Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey'', as well as ''Chewing'', a hobby magazine about chewing gum. (''Commander Coriander Salamander And 'Er Singlehander Bellyander'', the sequel to ''Hamster Huey'', is mentioned once.)

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}} features ''Ninjas of love'', implied to be a doujinshi.

* ''Webcomic/UnwindersTallComics'' are ''loaded'' with fictional books. Unwinder is a fan of the ''After Dark'' series, a [[Literature/{{Twilight}} romance novels involving zombies who are actually super-attractive athletes who can also fly]], as well as the remarkably dull sci-fi {{doorstopper}}s of Gary P. Rastov. Excerpts from all of these are provided, of course. \\

* The ''Pridelands'' novels from ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'', an epic ''Game of Thrones''-esque series with various big cat species, written specifically to appeal to cats (in a universe where all animals are anthropomorphised and sentient). It turns out that this is partly because it was written by a cat. Grape and Maxwell are stated fans of the series, and given their discussions of it it appears to have a very complicated mythos. Peanut takes an interest as well, and several of the other dogs admit to have found '[[BlatantLies only a couple of bits of it]]' interesting.

Sister trope to ShowWithinAShow.

* In ''Fanfic/AThingOfVikings'', each chapter opens with extracts from various books that will be published in the future of the new history where trained dragons become a common part of human history, ranging from brief hints about the human characters' future histories to some details about dragon biology.

* ''The Book of Ultimate Truths'' is about a search for the missing chapters of a book called ''The Book of Ultimate Truths'', a book about the secrets of the world.

---

* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', Jerin goes through his and his brothers' birth certificates, which are a bit different from birth certificates in our world. He also receives a letter at some point in the narrative, which is quoted in the book.
* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'': Snicket's letters at the end of each book, leading his editor to the manuscript of the following book and several props borrowed from it; also, numerous diaries and newspapers are quoted within the narrative, while the supplementary books are each a full-blown ScrapbookStory.
* Daniel Handler also uses this trope in his books written as Daniel Handler. In Adverbs, there is Helena's novel Glee Club. In ''Literature/WhyWeBrokeUp'', there is an imaginary book of recipes for food from the movies called ''Real Recipes from Tinseltown''.
* In ''Literature/DragonBones'' reference is made to several, very long ballads that Ward liked to quote to people who really annoy him, as part of his ObfuscatingStupidity. Thankfully, the reader is spared the full texts. Those ballads become a plot point when a runaway slave tells Ward that this is how she learnt that Hurog is a safe place to go; she met a guy who had been the victim of Ward's habit of reciting ballads. (The knowledge is outdated, Ward's father was a jerk who would have happily sent her back. Ward isn't, though.)
* Footnotes in ''Literature/LoyalEnemies'' seem to be written from an in-universe perspective, sometimes referring the more curious reader to in-universe documents on subjects such as the biology of werewolves or the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie witch rings]] of Beloria.
* When medieval poet Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote ''Parzival'', a German retelling and continuation of Creator/ChretienDeTroyes' ''Perceval'', he answered criticism of discrepancies between his version and Chrétien's earlier ones by claiming he was being faithful to the original account by one "Kyot the Provencal", whom he alleged to have been Chrétien's source as well.
* Creator/JRRTolkien's Middle-earth legendarium (''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', etc) has lots of fictional pieces of literature, both in prose and poetry, and also historic and scientific texts. Most well known is for obvious reasons the ''Red Book of Westmarch'', which contains Bilbo and Frodo's ''The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King''.
** ''The Book of Mazarbul'', the record of Balin's [[ApocalypticLog doomed]] Moria colony, in ''The Lord of the Rings''
* ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'', in P. K. Dick's ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle''
* ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' in all of its incarnations.

*** ''Literature/TheDarkHalf'' features excerpts from novels written by the characters Thad Beaumont and [[EvilTwin George Stark]]
* Creator/KatherineKurtz's ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'' series has a few of these:
** Camber is seen working on an ancient scroll in his research on Orin and his student Jodotha; Camber has a scholarly bent which he indulges in retirement.
** In the short story "Legacy" Prince Wencit Furstán is reading one of Ariella's letters to her brother and lover Imre; a key paragraph is part of the text of the story.
** In ''The King's Justice'', Rothana reads some of Orin's poetry aloud to Richenda in the ladies solar. Jehana overhears and enjoys them until she's told the author was Deryni.
** Jehana later finds a copy of ''Annales Queroni'', an autobiographical treatise on Deryni Healing by the tenth-century Dom Queron Kinevan, in Kelson's arcane library annex. She's reading it when she discovers she isn't alone in the library: Barrett is reading a work by Kitron, and he refers Kitron's ''Principia Magica'', as well as authors Jokal and Sulien.
* ''The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism'', in George Orwell's ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''.
* Creator/JorgeLuisBorges ''loved'' this trope. The biggest example is the collection of short stories called ''El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan'', where all the stories were are fictional books.
* Creator/DavidEddings ''loves'' these. The prologues of nearly all his books take the form of a fictional document detailing what has gone on before.
** Some that specifically deserve to be called out from Literature/TheBelgariad: ''The Mrin Codex'' and the ''Darine Codex'' are the collected ravings of two madmen inspired by the prophesy of light. ''The Ashabine Oracles'' are writings by [[BigBad Torak]] under the influence of the prophecy of dark.

* ''Literature/ThePrincessBride'' is a real novel written as if it were the annotated '[[AdaptationDistillation just the good bits]]' version of an even longer novel about the history and culture of the fictional nation Florin.
* In ''Der Schimmelreiter'' (''The Rider on the White Horse'') by the 19th-century German writer Theodor Storm, the narrator claims to be piecing together from memory a novella he read as a youngster.
* Craig Thomas has used this in his novels, such as ''Wolfsbane'', ''Sea Leopard'' and ''Literature/{{Firefox}}''.
* ''The Book of Night with Moon'' from Diane Duane's Literature/YoungWizards series.
* Excerpts from Princess Irulan's various scholarly works (and other people's, for that matter) [[EncyclopediaExposita appear as chapter headers]] throughout the ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' novels.
** There's also ''The Orange Catholic Bible'' that Yueh gives Paul. It's stated in some of the background material that the book contains most of the scriptures of the major religions of Earth. The copy given Paul is no larger than the end of his thumb, but has 1800 pages, and the print is so small that a built-in magnifier has to be used to read it.
** There's also the ''Literature/DuneEncyclopedia'' which is both written as in-universe and references other fictional documents.
* Franchise/{{Discworld}}:
** ''Mr. Bunnsy has an Adventure'', a Beatrix Potter pastiche from Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents''
** Pratchett is very fond of this trope; other examples from Literature/{{Discworld}} include ''The Necrotelicomnicon'' aka ''Liber Paginarum Fulvarum'' (a TomeOfEldritchLore), ''The Joy of Tantric Sex with Illustrations for the Advanced Student, by A. Lady'', ''The Book of Going Forth Around Elevenish'', ''The Little Folks' Book of Flower Fairies'', ''The Bumper Fun Grimoire'', ''How to Dynamically Manage People for Dynamic Results in a Caring Empowering Way in Quite a Short Time Dynamically'', ''Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises'', and many more, usually parody versions of real books. The ''[[UniverseCompendium Discworld Companion]]'' includes a full list.
*** Several have been [[{{Defictionalization}} Defictionalised]] for merchandising purposes, including ''Where's My Cow?'' (a children's book) and ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' (a follow-up to her in-universe book ''The Joye of Snackes'').
** Some of the books even become important plot devices, like ''[[Discworld/GuardsGuards The Summoning of Dragons]]'' (slightly foxed and heavily dragoned), ''[[Discworld/InterestingTimes What I Did on My Holidays]]'', and [[Discworld/TheTruth the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork]].
** ''[[Literature/GoodOmens Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch]]'' contained both ''The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch'' (obviously) and [[spoiler: that book's sequel]]
* About half of each the books in ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'' is journals from Bobby Pendragon himself, detailing his stays and attempts to save the Territories.
* Extracts from Literature/ThursdayNext's autobiography are scattered throughout the series. Extracts from others characters' jottings/memoirs also feature prominently.
* In Ayn Rand's ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', one of the so-called intelligentsia writes an article titled "The Octopus" which slams Henry Rearden. Then there's "Why Do You Think You Think?", "The Heart is a Milkman", "The Vulture is Molting", and even a "The Future" magazine. Then there's the laws and regulations and plans, including the "Anti-Dog Eat Dog Rule" to the "Equalization of Opportunity" bill to the "Railroad Unification Plan" to the "Steel Unification Plan". There are even audio versions, with Richard Halley's works and its bastardizations.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' has stacks of these, from trading cards to school textbooks to government pamphlets to wizarding comic books. As time has gone on, Rowling has taken to [[{{Defictionalization}} turning some of them into published works]] (''Literature/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'', ''Literature/QuidditchThroughTheAges'', ''Literature/TheTalesOfBeedleTheBard'').
* SpeculativeFiction author Creator/BruceSterling's short story "Our Neural Chernobyl" was written as a ''review'' of a fictional monograph (a non-fiction book on a specific real-world topic) about the "neural Chernobyl," which described the development, release, and consequences of a retrovirus that caused massive growth in brain complexity in almost all mammals, something catastrophic for humans as the process makes humans massively intelligent, but effectively burns out the brain after a while. The story even touches on the book's exploration of the controversial topic of non-human uplifting from the virus, where many animals became much more intelligent, to the point cats developed torture devices to use on mice.
* ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', a fictional play script from the book of short stories of the same name.
** [[{{Defictionalization}} The version written by Thom Ryng]] is actually quite good, though it fails to drive its readers or players insane.
* Used extensively in Creator/JackVance's ''Literature/TheDemonPrinces'' series. A lot of the chapters, in fact, start with more or less related quotes from various invented works. Titles mentioned include the many-volumed "Life" by Baron Bodissey or the "Scroll from the Ninth Dimension". Also quite prominent in the story is a fictional magazine named "Cosmopolis".
* In particular, the film ''The Navidson Record'' from ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' doesn't actually exist, and the protagonist tells you this in the book's introduction. Meanwhile, the meat of ''[[color:blue:House]] of Leaves'' is an [[EverybodyIsJesusInPurgatory academic analysis]]/summary of said film. A few of the people and books referred to in the analysis's footnotes are real; the vast, vast majority of them are completely made up.

* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': Everything published by Whateley Press.
** "Introduction to the Modern Theory of Mutant Powers, a Whateley Press textbook" by Filbert R. Z. Quintain, M.S., Ph.D., F.A.A.S.
** From ''[[http://whateleyacademy.net/index.php/content_page/item/1103-all-hallows-ball-part-two All Hallows Ball Part Two]]'':
---> Dr Quintain's [...] ''Beyond Shiva: A Detailed Study of the Avatar Trait''
* Used from time to time in ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'', mostly in the form of books of prophecy. Being prophesies, they are then [[ScrewDestiny promptly ignored]].

* ''The Book of Ultimate Truths'' is about a search for the missing chapters of a book called ''The Book of Ultimate Truths'', a book about the secrets of the world.
* ''Literature/TheBookOfAllHours'' in Hal Duncan's duology of the same name.
* And of course the aforementioned ''Necronomicon'', spawned in the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraft]] [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos horrorverse]] but since widely exported to other canons and other media. ''Many'' different Necronomicons have been published over the years. Their quality... varies. Some are merely collections of Mythos stories. Others run the gamut from psudeophilosophical ramblings to attempts at a "genuine" version of the Mad Arab's writings.

* Much of [[Creator/KarelCapek Karel Čapek]]'s ''Literature/WarWithTheNewts'' consists of fictional newspaper excerpts commenting on the situation with the Newts (and, eventually, the eponymous war).
* This trope appears as a central theme in the book ''Literature/TheDiamondAge'' by Creator/NealStephenson. In it, the protagonist girl is given a very high tech teaching book by the name of "The Young Ladies' Illustrated Primer," which also appears as a subtitle of the book. It's not so much a fictional ''document'' as a fictional ''nanotechnological superweapon'', but most of the time it looks and acts like a book.
* Several of the Warhammer 40000: Horus Heresy books have characters talk about an epic called The Chronicles of Ursh. They never go into more detail about it.
* In the Literature/CiaphasCain novels, [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis Amberley Vail]] uses extracts from other sources to fill in the blanks left by Cain's self-centered account. These include the PurpleProse-filled memoirs of a future general in his unit, histories of varying accuracy, travel guides, and even a children's book about promethium.

* Italo Calvino's ''Literature/IfOnAWintersNightATraveler'' has excerpts from ten wildly different fictional novels, though the [[AudienceSurrogate Reader]] can never get past the first chapter of each.
* The Others from the ''Literature/NightWatch'' series have The Great Treaty between Light and Darkness, whichrestricted the century-old bloodshed between the Light Ones and the Dark Ones, regularized the relations between the two factions and stipulated formation and functioning of the Watches.
* Garth Nix's ''Literature/KeysToTheKingdom'' has ''The Compleat Atlas'', which is a magic book that will tell you anything about the House.
* Another of Nix's series, The Old Kingdom books, feature quite a few of these; of particular note is ''The Book of the Dead'', which follows people around, can only be opened by a necromancer and closed by an uncorrupted Charter mage, and causes the reader to forget the parts of it that would be too unpleasant to remember until needed. Slightly more mundane, but still magical, texts include ''The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting'', which is about how to see into the past; ''In The Skin of a Lyon'', which is about how to turn into an animal; and ''Creatures by Nagy'', which is a bestiary of unpleasant Free Magic monsters. It's that kind of series.
* Many of the page quotes in Creator/DeanKoontz novels are from ''The Book of Counted Sorrows'', though this eventually became TheRedStapler.
* [[Literature/SherlockHolmes "Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. , Late of the Army Medical Department"]]
** Holmes himself was the author of numerous monographs regarding the science of detection, including ones on the analysis of typewritten documents, on the dating of handwriting, on the tracing of footprints, on cryptoanalysis, and of course on the different types of cigar(ette) ash.
** Professor James Moriarty's work, ''On the Dynamics of An Asteroid'', has been [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow suppressed by the scientific community]] since its initial publication, and as Creator/IsaacAsimov 's Black Widowers deduce, [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt it's a good thing too.]]
** The Baker Street Museum in London has a number of books lying about that were purportedly written by Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty. One of Holmes's texts is a book about [[MythologyGag bees]].

* ''Literature/{{Inkheart}}'' is the most important plot device within its eponymous frame story.
* Most of the books on the pig-related shelf in the library of Literature/BlandingsCastle, including most notably Lord Emsworth's favourite, Whiffles On the Care of the Pig. (The title is given with variations in different novels, in ''Galahad at Blandings'' the author is called Augustus Whipple).
** Other Creator/PGWodehouse examples: the [[UptownGirl inter-class]] [[RomanceNovel romance novels]] of Rosie M. Banks (examples include ''A Red, Red Summer Rose'', ''Only a Factory Girl'', ''The Woman Who Braved All'', ''The Courtship of Lord Strathmorlick'', ''Madcap Myrtle'', and ''Mervyn Keen, Clubman'') and various detective novels read by the protagonists (which generally have overblown titles like ''A Trail of Blood'').
* In the ''Literature/StarTrekVoyagerRelaunch'', the Royal Protocol document, bane of Starfleet Officers everywhere. A complete list of dos and don'ts for interacting with alien royals, it's a necessity if diplomatic incidents are to be avoided. It's mind-numbing in its detail, full of little rules along the lines of "when greeting the King, touch your head to the ground three times and then wave your left hand. Oh, and under no circumstances wear purple". An important plot point arises when it's realized "Royal Protocol" has a very different meaning to the Borg.

* ''Death in the Slave Pits of Lorrd, or How I Spent My Inter-Term Break'', an essay [[DirectLineToTheAuthor supposedly written by]] Tash Arranda of ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'', cites several in-universe documents.

* Lawrence Block's ''The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling'' revolves around ''The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow'', the spectacularly awful result of Creator/RudyardKipling's descent into FilibusterFreefall.
* Lisa Goldstein is fond of this trope. In ''Walking the Labyrinth'', there is Emily Wether's diary, Callan's diary, Lady Westingate's pamphlet and Andrew Dodd's review. In ''Dark Cities Underground'', there is a fictional children's series called the Jeremy Books. In ''The Uncertain Places'', there is a fictional Brother's Grimm fairy tale as well as excerpts from a police interview from the 1920's.
* ''Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore'' has several examples, including The Dragonsong Trilogy (which turns out to be a plot device).
* In Walter Moers's ''Literature/TheThirteenAndAHalfLivesOfCaptainBluebear‎'' there is ''[[EncyclopediaExposita The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs]]''. There are also many imaginary books and plays including ''The Voltigork's Vibrobass'', an experimental drama which lasted 240 hours and had a literal cast of thousands by Wilfred the Wordsmith and the bestseller ''How Dank Was My Valley'' by Psittachus Rumplestilt.
* Walter Moers's ''Literature/TheCityOfDreamingBooks'' is chock full of fictional documents from ''Thanks But No Thanks'' by [[AlliterativeName Goliath Ghork]] to ''Silence of the Sirens'' by Count Klanthu of Kinomaz.

* Robert Sobel's ''Literature/ForWantOfANail'' is a counterfactual history of the North American continent following a failed American Revolution which includes a frequently referenced bibliography with dozens of fictional academic books.
* ''Literature/{{Julian}}'' works on the theory that Julian The Apostate, in the last months of his life, partially dictated his memoirs while campaigning in Persia.
* ''Fergus Crane'':
** ''Practical Pot-Holing for Beginners'' by Edward T. Trellis, the main textbook referred to on the school ship Betty-Jeanne.
** ''The Cycling Fish'', a popular musical farce (also by Edward T. Trellis), is referenced to several times throughout the book, either in passing or in the background of illustrations. According to the critics, "[[NoodleIncident the elephant is as thrilling as ever]]".
* The ''Literature/VillageTales'' series is stuffing with these. Including historical documents attributed to Wordsworth, Pope, Addison, Johnson, and Grey (and the Duke of Taunton's late InUniverse godfather, Sir John Betjeman), and parliamentary speeches printed in ''Hansard.'' All of them excellent ShownTheirWork [[{{Pastiche}} pastiches.]]
** The MacGuffin in the ''Literature/VillageTales'' novel ''Literature/{{Evensong}}'' is one, as well: Lord Crispin's CompromisingMemoirs.
** Similarly, there are plenty of fictional paintings and valuables in the ducal collections by RealLife Old Masters, often with hilarious InJoke titles...
* ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' from ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'', a popular AlternateHistory novel within the story that becomes very important to the plot. Given that ''The Man In The High Castle'' is an alternate history itself, this means that ''The Grasshopper'' depicts a world similar to our own (though not the same).

* ''Dining Out On Mythical Beasts'', a cookbook by Grimspite the sinistrom of ''Literature/TheDivide''. It would probably be a fairly standard recipe guide in our world, because FaeriesDontBelieveInHumansEither.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}} features ''Ninjas of love'' implied to be a doujinshi.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The Franchise/DCUniverse features "true crime" comics of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.'s adventures, presumably taken from media accounts, etc.; one late 60s Batman story made use of this as its plot (Batman forced to confront the writer of his world's "Batman" comic).

* Creator/DanielHandler also uses this trope in his books written as Daniel Handler. In Adverbs, there is Helena's novel Glee Club. In ''Literature/WhyWeBrokeUp'', there is an imaginary book of recipes for food from the movies called ''Real Recipes from Tinseltown''.

* Craig Thomas has used this at least twice in his novels, such as ''Wolfsbane'' and ''Literature/{{Firefox}}''.

* Pretty much all of the 11 backup features in ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'', in addition to the comic book ''Tales from the Black Freighter''. The comic contains these documents for real in the sense of containing their actual texts and illustrations.

* Pretty much all of the 11 backup features in ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'', in addition to the comic book ''Tales from the Black Freighter''.

-->'''Chapter 4:''' Introduction to the book ''Dr. Manhattan: Super-Powers and the Superpowers'' by Dr. Milton Glass, discussing Manhattan's role in shaping the world of Watchmen.

* Pretty much all of the 11 backup features in ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}''