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This article needs to be updated.

Information from PROSE: A Journal of Impossible Things.

These omissions are so great that the article's factual accuracy has been compromised. Check out the discussion page and revision history for further clues about what needs to be updated in this article.

You may be looking for the book by Verity Newman.

A Journal of Impossible Things was a journal kept by John Smith of his strange dreams. In reality, the book was comprised of events he'd experienced as the Doctor. All but Martha Jones, the only person who knew his actual identity, believed these to be products of John Smith's imagination.

History[]

After turning himself human to hide from the Family of Blood, John Smith began to experience dreams of his adventures as the Doctor. He scribbled these down, adding detailed sketches throughout.

Smith gave the book to Joan Redfern, (TV: Human Nature) who apparently annotated it with a detailed chronicle of her love story with a strange visitor from beyond the stars. In the 21st century, this annotated version of the book fell in possession of her great-granddaughter, Verity Newman, who used it as the basis for own book of the same name. (TV: The End of Time)

Illustrations[]

Among the many illustrations Smith made in his journal were:

JOIT9and10page

The sketch of the Doctor's incarnations. (TV: Human Nature)

Behind the scenes[]

  • An actual, intricately-illustrated prop book was created for the filming by artist Kellyanne Walker. Later, Character Options, which held some of the rights to release toys and merchandise based upon the series, issued a faux leather-bound reproduction of the book. The CO journal is not as big as the one in the episode.
  • The images of the Doctor appearing in the journal were taken from a collage of past incarnations used as the illustration for the Wikipedia article on the Doctor, though they were inverted.
  • In the original novel Human Nature, John Smith did not write a journal, but a children's story, The Old Man and the Police Box, which similarly echoed events in the Doctor's life; however, that story contained more radical implications that the Doctor was originally a Victorian human who had single-handedly invented the TARDIS, discovered Gallifrey and founded Time Lord civilisation, none of which is suggested in A Journal of Impossible Things.

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