Reference for general-topology

Question

Though there are several posts discussing the reference books for topology, for example best book for topology. But as far as I looked up to, all of them are for the purpose of learning topology or rather on introductory level.

I am wondering if there is a book or a set of books on topology like Rudin's analysis books, S.Lang's algebra, Halmos' measure (or to be more updated, Bogachev's measure theory), etc, serving as standard references.

Probably, such a book should hold characteristics such as being self-contained, covering the most of classical results, and other good properties you can name.

In the end, I only have the interest on general-topology (topological space, metrization, compactification...), and optionally differential topology (manifolds). So please don't divert into algebraic context.

Cheers.

---------------------update-----------------------

Thanks for all the delightful replies. I will try to quickly check the books mentioned beneath. And I may accept the answer which is most closed to my personal flavor.

Sorry for others. It's a pity no multiple acceptance can be made for such a ref-request question.

Greetings.

Answer 1

For general topology, it is hard to beat Ryszard Engelking's "General Topology". It starts at the very basics, but goes through quite advanced topics. It may be perhaps a bit dated, but it is still the standard reference in general topology.

Answer 2

Stephen Willard, General Topology

This book is less complete than Engelking, but still contains enough material to make a good reference book. It is also quite cheap, as a Dover book.

Answer 3

Bourbaki's General Topology is in my opinion the best reference on General Topology. (The English version has two volumes.)

Answer 4

One other old stand-by is J.L. Kelley's General Topology, published as GTM 27. It is quite good especially if you are approaching the topic with the eye of an analyst. (In the preface he professed that he wanted to subtitle the book "What Every Young Analyst Should Know".)

Answer 5

Please look at "Topology and groupoids", http://www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown/topgpds.html

which is published privately to keep the price down, and an e-version for £5 is available through the above site.

The first part is a geometric account of general topology, with motivation for definitions and theorems, starting with the neighbourhood axioms, as more intuitive, and then proceeding to open sets, etc. There is a gradual introduction to universal properties, so that topologies are often defined in order to be able to construct various kinds of continuous functions. It has a lot on identification spaces, adjunction spaces, finite cell complexes, and also an introduction to a topology on function spaces to give a convenient category of spaces.

The second part is on the use of the fundamental groupoid in algebraic topology, allowing more powerful theorems with simpler proofs.

A review is at

http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/19/?pa=reviews&sa=viewBook&bookId=69421

As said elsewhere on this site, it does not cater so well for the needs of analysts, but they also ought to know about universal properties!

Answer 6

The Handbook of Set-Theoretic Topology is a great reference on many advanced areas of general topology.

Answer 7

The following 3 volume set (translated from Russian, edited by A. V. Arhangelskii) deserves to be mentioned among references for general topology, too. It is part of Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences series.

• General topology. I. Basic concepts and constructions. Dimension theory. Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences, 17. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1990. ISBN 3-540-18178-4 Google Books link, DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-61265-7_1, MR1077251

• General topology. II. Compactness, homologies of general spaces. Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences, 50. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1996. ISBN 3-540-54695-2 Google Books link, DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-77030-2, MR1392480

• General topology. III. Paracompactness. Function spaces. Descriptive theory. Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences, 51. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1995. ISBN 3-540-54698-7 Google Books link, DOI:10.1007/978-3-662-07413-8, MR1416131.

Answer 8

Another book which might be worth mentioning in this context (although this is different from other books mentioned here; it contains overview of many various areas, but no proofs of the results given there):

Encyclopedia of General Topology; Edited by: Klaas Pieter Hart, Jun-iti Nagata and Jerry E. Vaughan, Elsevier, 2003, ISBN: 978-0-444-50355-8. sciencedirect, Elsevier, MR2049453, Zbl 1059.54001 .

Many of the authors provide the chapters which their contributed to this book freely on their websites.

Quote from the preface:

Thus the book provides a source where the specialist and nonspecialist alike can find short introductions to both the basic theory and the newest developments in General Topology.

Because the book is designed for the reader who wants to get a general view of the terminology with minimal time and effort there are very few proofs given; on occasion a sketch of an argument will be given, more to illustrate a notion than to justify a claim.

A reader who wants to study the subject matter of one or more of the articles systematically (or who wants to see the proof of a particular result) will find sufficient references at the end of each article as well as in the books in our list of standard references.

In connection with this question, the list of references given in the preface might be of interest too. Google Books link.