Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were Creatures, Places, and People

It's been my introduction to fantasy and horror when I was a teenager, scared the hell out of me sometimes. Countless hours of browsing through the entries of this book, it's a great inspiration for RPG as well. The pictures are beautiful but feel a bit dated nowadays. There are some pictures in this book that still give me the creeps, like the troll picture, and some that I love to this day, like the picture of the mermaid. Good place to start if you're interested in folklore and mythology.