Hard-to-Google Lit. Crit. Queries...

[steepholm]

Is there a general term for novels (or other fictions) that contain/mention themselves? I mean, the novel is called The Book of Glum, and it's about someone who turns out to be writing or reading a book called The Book of Glum, or we're at least given to know that this is a world where The Book of Glum already exists?

Also, is there decent existing discussion (in journals or elsewhere) of this phenomenon?

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I can hardly remember anything about The Neverending Story, but isn't the bulk of the text the actual story that the character in the other part is reading? Or isn't it? If it is, it falls in the first, rather than the second, of my categories.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, most of it is him reading The Neverending Story, and (I think) being sucked into its events somehow.