In the Realms of the Unreal is an unpublished fantasy work written from the 1910s to 1930s by Henry Darger, an American janitor generally described as an outsider artist. Comprising 15,145 pages in addition to handwritten supplements, the book was described by art historian John MacGregor as "unquestionably the longest work of fiction ever written".
Background
Around the early 1910s in Chicago, the hospital worker Henry Darger began privately writing what would become a multi-decade literary work, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco–Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion (abbreviated In the Realms of the Unreal). One of his diary entries makes reference to a manuscript which was lost in September 1910, which focused on a fictional war dubbed the "Abbysinkilian-Abbieannian war and Tripolygonian war". However, other diaries state that he began writing the work in 1911 or 1912.
While writing the work, Darger became greatly distressed after losing a clipping of Elsie Paroubek from a 1911 edition of the Chicago Daily News. Darger prayed to God for its return and grew resentful for its continued absence. He incorporated the loss of the picture into the work through the "Aronburg Mystery". For some time after losing the photo, Darger erected an altar to Aronburg in Schloeder's barn, offered novenas, and prayed seven times a day. This continued absence of the photo greatly prolonged the work, which expanded many thousands of pages over the following decades. Darger made ultimatums to God with the threat of depicting great acts of violence in the book and writing in defeats for the Christian armies.
Description In the Realms of the Unreal takes place on a fictional planet a thousand times the size of Earth. Although the world is said in the introduction to have the Earth as its moon, later references place it as being physically connected to the Earth; the United States is described as being hundreds of thousands of miles away by sea from the book's setting.
Motivated against the evil Glandelinians' use of child slavery, a coalition of Christian nations (Abbieannia alongside Calverinia and Angelina) fight against them in a devastating conflict lasting four years. The Vivian Girls, the seven young princesses of Abbieannia, are the chief protagonists, and throughout the narrative fight to free the enslaved children from their captors. Beyond the general framing of the war, it is difficult to discern any sustained plotlines throughout the book, although various themes and situations reappear continuously throughout the narrative.
The Aronburg Mystery is mentioned throughout the work. Annie Aronburg, a pious girl around nine years old, was among the main leaders of the child rebellion, and a successful military commander. After her assassination by one or more Glandelinians, controversy emerges over the identity of her assassins. Darger's alter ego within the story loses a photo of Aronburg, reflecting his loss of the photo of Paroubek. Her assassin is later named Thomas Phelan Tammerline, after a roommate (Thomas Phelan) who Darger accused of stealing or destroying the photograph.
Aronburg's body is later recovered, found in a miraculous undecayed state. The Vivian Girls are given her internal organs to keep as relics. As a spiritual apparition, Aronburg visits Darger's character three times, admonishing him for turning the work against the Christian nations, noting that "you alone have the situation of both sides in your power."
The story has two separate endings. The first, in which the photo of Annie Aronburg was found, has the Christian forces defeating and capturing the Glandelinian General Manley, while the alternate ending has Manley escape after a feigned surrender and rally his troops to repel the Christian armies from the country. Neither ending is directly continuous with the rest of the story, with scholar Michael Moon describing them as "mutually exclusive possible—but never achieved—endings".
Themes Natural disasters, such as thunderstorms, floods, forest fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes, are another common focus throughout the book, often at supernaturally exaggerated scale, as are various poetic descriptions of more mundane weather phenomena. The internal geography and rules of the universe of In the Realms of the Unreal are inconsistent. Darger never produced a general map of the world.
Lengthy and extremely detailed descriptions of battles and sieges are the most common focus of the story. There are thousands of battles described throughout the book, with the descriptions ranging from less than a page to hundreds. These accounts feature descriptions of tactics, logistics, and their impact on civilians. Battles are fought by huge armies sometimes exceeding a hundred million participants, and frequently result in millions of casualties. Glandelinian war crimes are often recounted alongside the battles, with particular detail given to their massacres of children when occupying cities.
Style The writing features frequent grammatical and typographical errors. Different volumes of the book will abruptly change subject matter between sections, and many adjacent sections appear to have been made years apart only to be inserted together when the book was compiled. Misspelled words are sometimes terminated early, and followed by the correctly spelled version. In other instances, the words are spelled out fully before a filler word such as "or" or "I mean", followed by the corrected spelling.
Characters The main protagonists of the book are the seven Vivian sisters: Violet, Joice, Jennie, Catherine, Hettie, Daisy, and Evangeline. Other prominent supporting characters include the sisters' father Robert Vivian (the Governor, and later Emperor of Angelinia) and their uncle Hanson Vivian, the Governor of Calverinia. Jack Evans, an Abbieannian orphan who rose to prominence as a military commander, serves as the girls' guardian and protector.
Creation Darger handwrote drafts of the work through planning journals for two years. He began typing the work around 1912. He stopped working on the Realms after the late 1930s.
Physical construction Darger hand-bound the first seven volumes of the Realms in 1932. The remaining volumes were left unbound as bundles of loose pages. He made leaves by pasting two sheets of typed paper together. These manuscripts also reused flyers and notebooks (most likely taken from the trash) which at times still bear their previous unrelated text. The bound books are very heavy, measuring around , and ranging from thick depending on page count.
Their pagination is often inconsistent, as is the size of paper used, which frequently alternately between letter and legal paper. Darger's rearranging of the text throughout the roughly twenty years he spent writing has resulted in inconsistent font size throughout the books. The works are always typed in black ink, except for two pages in the unbound Volume VII (also known as Volume XII) has two pages, where all capital letters and punctuation marks are typed in red. This may symbolize the bloodshed described in this section. +Volumes of In the Realms of the Unreal#TypePage countNotesIBound644II915III1162IV1577No obvious continuity with Volume III.V862VI933VII1176VIIIUnbound836The first volume not to be bound. Continuity with the bound Volume VII.(IX)2164Also known as Volume C, as it lacks any title page or volume number. MacGregor tentatively labeled it Volume IX.X, pt. 1862X, pt. 2944Continuity with Volume X, Part 1.XI908Has continuity with Volume X, Part 2. This is the last volume numbered by Darger.VII (XII)1210Although numbered Volume VII, the bound Volume VII appears to have replaced its position in the story. MacGregor tentatively labeled it Volume XII from text study.(XIII)652Also known as Volume B, it lacks a title page or volume number, but clearly serves as the story's conclusion. An alternate ending is included on unnumbered pages.(A)364The page count does not include various songs and poems also found within the bundle. As the pages are extremely out of order, this may have been a collection of discarded material. +Handwritten material associated with The Realms of the UnrealTitleTypeDatePage countNotesIn a Child Slave PlantationUnbound register bookOctober 27, 1926328These chapters were included in Volume IX.Strange Incidents in St. Claires PlantationCloth-bound register bookJanuary 22, 1927138Continuous with "In a Child Slave Plantation", these chapters appear in Volume IX. Did Jannie find out who her master was? Chapter, What is itCloth-bound register bookApril 1, 1927136Continuous with "Strange Incidents in St. Claires Plantation", these chapters appear in Volume IX. The Plantation is AbandonedUnbound register bookApril 5, 1927320Continuous with the volume dated April 1, 1927, these chapters appear in Volume IX.Mullencat State Calverinia. Explosion, flood, and fire, 700,000 lives lostBound register bookNovember 23, 1927474A very large and heavy book noncontinuous with the prior handwritten books, this contains three unrelated sections of text: a section from Volume IX, a very large section from Volume VII, and an unidentified segment of Further Adventures in Chicago.No. OneBound register bookN/A132Contains two sections: "No. One" is from the Realms, but it is uncertain where it is located in the story, and if it was used. "No. Two" appears to be a segment of Further Adventures in Chicago.Amazing Phenomena Connected with the Enormous Battle of Dolorine CostellioRing-binder pages, held with stringN/A839Possibly connected to a much shorter description of the battle included in Volume II.UnnamedRing-binder N/A117Continuous with "Amazing Phenomena Connected with the Enormous Battle of Dolorine Costellio".Battle of Eva Sainte ClaireComposition bookN/AUnknownNo other information is available beyond its title.Please Return this Book to its Proper Place. This means you Henry D.Register book with broken bindingN/AUnknownA planning journal for the Realms, alongside a 92-page segment copied from a Christian catechism. It was used to keep track of characters, deaths, battles, and other events.
Influences In the Realms of the Unreal borrows many characters and scenes from existing media. At times, entire chapters from other works are included with only slight rewording or alteration; sections were taken from The Flaming Forest, a 1921 adventure novel about Canadian firefighters.
Children's literature, particularly serial fiction such as the Bobbsey Twins, is a strong and persistent influence on the work. Darger was inspired by The Pilgrim's Progress, a 1678 Christian novel by John Bunyan.
Illustration Darger began experimenting with illustrations to accompany the work around the early 1910s, initially creating portraits of the characters through collage and overpainting. These paintings depict scenes and characters from the work, with many of the darker works featuring scenes of mass execution and torture of the child rebels by the Gladelinians.
Reception and legacy
William Schloeder is the only person known to have been friends with Darger, and is perhaps the only person he showed any of his writing to during his life. The bound volumes were likely seen by no one other than Darger. He is not known to have ever sought to publish the writings or mention them to others. After his death they were stored in his room, with individual volumes only briefly leaving for exhibition.