This is the “Sort Of” or “Close but Not Quite” wordless list
For collectors looking for strictly “wordless” novels, don’t be misled by the books listed here.
David Beronä, in the Author’s Note at the front of his book, Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels, referred to some publications as “Anomalies”. He didn’t view the anomalies as wordless stories (BTW, not all of his exclusions were justified, and he omitted some that have been added here).
The definition of “anomalies” is misleading, so this site uses the term “Not-Quite”.
Not-Quite: not really wordless stories??
Some of these publications are not “wordless,” while others may be wordless, but they aren’t “stories” — all problematic, but perhaps of interest, eg.
- Wordless biographies and religious works can be well known to certain viewers, BUT
- if a viewer doesn’t already know the story, then they can’t figure out the story from the images alone,
- the images don’t tell a story – the wordless images only illustrate highlights in the well-known story.
OR
- Some wordless publications have images around a common theme but no story arc,
- The images could be scrambled, and the result would work just as well because the order of the images is irrelevant, e.g., views of a city – the order in seeing a building versus a bridge first is not usually important.
- NOTE: the Danse Macabre/Dance of Death cycles come to mind, but will be left to a later date as they are so extensive.
Inclusion here, on the Not-Quite page, versus on the Wordless page, is sometimes arbitrary.
If you think:
- an artist or a book has been overlooked, or
- some of the information is inaccurate/incomplete, or
- you have photos that would improve this site, then
Contact us with the particulars at wn@wordlessnovels.com
Credit will be given for any information used.