The Book of Counted Sorrows by Stephen Crane

Thanks to Lantra

Title: The Book of Counted Sorrows 

Author: Stephen Crane / Dean Koontz

Source book: A number of books by Dean Koontz including Mr Murder and Odd Thomas 

Dean Koontz quotes fictional poetry from The Book of Counted Sorrows in a number of his books. After a while Koontz fans started searching for the source book of all the poetry, and apparently at one stage he was receiving 3,000 letters a year from fans and even book sellers, all anxious to buy a copy of this fictitious book of poetry. Eventually, when Koontz was contacted by a librarian, eager to get his hands on a copy of this elusive volume, he decided he had to write the book himself. Even though that meant he had to sit down and write a lot more poetry.

So The Book of Counted Sorrows is both a fictional book and a real book. In the fictional book the poems are by Stephen Crane. Here’s a list of poems and the books they appeared in.

Odd Thomas is also the source book for a further fictional book: The Book of Counted Joys.

I have never read a Dean Koontz book but I know he’s an extremely successful writer, so this is all from online research. Especial thanks to Wikipedia.

Thanks to Britannica