Chronicle

A battered dwarf-record of Balin's attempt to recolonise Moria, found on his tomb. The last line trails off in another alphabet: they are coming.

An Arabic history of a knight, found in the Alcana of Toledo, translated by a Morisco for a few raisins and wheat, from which — so the frame insists — Don Quixote was put into Spanish.

A Sanskrit chronicle of Macondo, written in advance of the lives it records, which the last Aureliano finishes reading as the wind erases the town — and which is, at that moment, the novel in your hands.

A red-leather manuscript of hobbit memoirs and translated Elvish lore, from which — so the frame insists — The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were translated into English.

The history of a sentient stone, left over from the repairing of the sky, that begged to see the world of red dust — copied off its own surface and read, in our world, as the great novel of a declining house.