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

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

My interest is this: that it's vanishingly rare that a first person narrator can die

I know of an example of it happening, and now that I think about it, the book's subtitle might be the name of a book she's writing. (It's been many years since I've read it, but it's something like that.) But I can't decide whether to name it here because it's (natch) the most enormous spoiler for the book…. Should I?

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

I would certainly like to know! But pm me (or email me at nightspore at gmail) to avoid exposing the secret to others....