It's one of the first things we discover as children, reading and drawing: Maps have a unique power to transport us to distant lands on wondrous travels. Put a map at the start of a book, and we know an adventure is going to follow. Displaying this truth with beautiful full-color illustrations, The Writer's Map is an atlas of the journeys that our most creative storytellers have made throughout their lives. This magnificent collection encompasses not only the maps that appear in their books but also the many maps that have inspired them, the sketches that they used while writing, and others that simply sparked their curiosity.
Philip Pullman recounts the experience of drawing a map as he set out on one of his early novels, The Tin Princess. Miraphora Mina recalls the creative challenge of drawing up "The Marauder's Map" for the Harry Potter films. David Mitchell leads us to the Mappa Mundi by way of Cloud Atlas and his own sketch maps. Robert Macfarlane reflects on the cartophilia that has informed his evocative nature writing, which was set off by Robert Louis Stevenson and his map of Treasure Island. Joanne Harris tells of her fascination with Norse maps of the universe. Reif Larsen writes about our dependence on GPS and the impulse to map our experience. Daniel Reeve describes drawing maps and charts for The Hobbit film trilogy. This exquisitely crafted and illustrated atlas explores these and so many more of the maps writers create and are inspired by--some real, some imagined--in both words and images.
Amid a cornucopia of 167 full-color images, we find here maps of the world as envisaged in medieval times, as well as maps of adventure, sci-fi and fantasy, nursery rhymes, literary classics, and collectible comics. An enchanting visual and verbal journey, The Writer's Map will be irresistible for lovers of maps, literature, and memories--and anyone prone to flights of the imagination.
"Lewis-Jones has assembled a team of writers and illustrators and asked them to explain in personal terms what maps mean to them, how their love of the things came about and how maps figure in their own work."-- "Wall Street Journal"
" The Writer's Map allows readers to tour worlds created by some of literature's greatest storytellers. The beautiful book features a full-color collection of magical maps imagined by a range of authors, from classic novelist Rudyard Kipling to contemporary children's author Abi Elphinstone. When compiled together, these maps compose 'a curious, creative gathering' any explorer is bound to enjoy."-- "My Modern Met"
"It deserves saying up front: this is a beautiful book. If you run a map library, you should have it in your collection; if you read fiction and are interested in maps, you will find a lot in it to explore."--Nat Case "Cartographic Perspectives"
"This is a wonderfully illustrated book that one could spend hours just looking at the maps contained. The maps are of fictional places as well as a plentitude of maps from before the 1600s, when 'factual maps' were often drawn by cartographers that were listening to the tales of mariners and explorers and the maps were then as reliable as the tales. This is an excellent addition to the literature."-- "Mythlore"
Huw Lewis-Jones is a historian of exploration with a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He was formerly curator at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, and the National Maritime Museum, London. His books include Arctic, Ocean Portraits, In Search of the South Pole, The Conquest of Everest, The Crossing of Antarctica, and Across the Arctic Ocean. Most recently, he is also coauthor of the internationally bestselling Explorers' Sketchbooks.