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An Atlas of Fantasy
More than one hundred detailed maps depict lands of fantasy, folk-lore, and fiction from Atlantis to Oz as described by novelists, cartoonists, utopians, and story-tellers
283 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 10, 2008
I have managed to acquire a copy of this childhood favorite. It was only $1.98 but they got me with shipping and handling. Still it only came to about $8, less than I paid for the original copy, which fell apart because the binding couldn't take the constant page turning.
Poring over these maps eventually led me to the works of James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, Austin Wright, Leigh Brackett and Clark Ashton Smith. I even heard about William Faulkner from this book since there's a map of Yoknapatawpha County in it (though, sadly, I didn't actually read him until I had to teach The Sound and the Fury for a high school Comp class).
Two of the more interesting maps are those of E.R. Burroughs' many worlds. Not only to we get his sketches of Barsoom and Pellucidar but also of Amtor (from his Venus novels) and all the lost cities Tarzan managed to stumble across in his African adventures. The other is that of the land of Allestone, the imaginary country of a boy who died before he was six years old -- Thomas Williams Malkin (1795-1802). As the author notes "[a] calendar and dating system, a history and a culture, and a geography were created for Allestone. The stories may read a bit crudely but consider that they were written by a six-year-old child." I'd love to find a copy of his father's memoirs, where the maps, histories and stories are appended, but it was written in 1806 and I doubt there are many copies still wandering about.
Poring over these maps eventually led me to the works of James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, Austin Wright, Leigh Brackett and Clark Ashton Smith. I even heard about William Faulkner from this book since there's a map of Yoknapatawpha County in it (though, sadly, I didn't actually read him until I had to teach The Sound and the Fury for a high school Comp class).
Two of the more interesting maps are those of E.R. Burroughs' many worlds. Not only to we get his sketches of Barsoom and Pellucidar but also of Amtor (from his Venus novels) and all the lost cities Tarzan managed to stumble across in his African adventures. The other is that of the land of Allestone, the imaginary country of a boy who died before he was six years old -- Thomas Williams Malkin (1795-1802). As the author notes "[a] calendar and dating system, a history and a culture, and a geography were created for Allestone. The stories may read a bit crudely but consider that they were written by a six-year-old child." I'd love to find a copy of his father's memoirs, where the maps, histories and stories are appended, but it was written in 1806 and I doubt there are many copies still wandering about.
July 13, 2019
My copy of AN ATLAS OF FANTASY is the 1979 paperback edition and is, alas, falling apart after years of use and abuse; at some point I'll track down a quality copy of the hardcover. I don't believe this was ever reprinted since the '79 Ballantine edition (the first edition from 1973 is slightly different) - or if it was, it wasn't updated or expanded. Which is too bad, as the fantasy genre has really exploded since the 1970s when this was originally published; on the other hand, I'd hate to have any of the more obscure and weird maps that are included in this edition dropped for the cartographic examples from the bajillions of current, in print Tolkien wanna-bes. And there have been other fantasy-map volumes published if you're interested in that sort of thing.
What you get here is 200 or so pages of maps, presented in chronological order, reprinted and reproduced more-or-less exactly as drawn and published in their original sources - often by the writers of the various novels that are the predominate texts from which the maps are chosen. In most cases the maps are on the recto and a brief text describing little bit about the context - the work and author at the least - on the verso. A complete listing of all the maps included can be found in the Wiki entry for the book, but briefly they range from an 8th-century Spanish monks' conception of Eden to "The Four Lands" from Terry Brooks' SHANNARA series and "The Land" from Stephen R. Donaldson's THOMAS COVENANT trilogy. There are maps from religious and secular Utopias, humorous maps, maps from children's books, etc. The most-represented writers are Edgar Rice Burroughs, with 13 maps from his many series, and J.R.R. Tolkien with 7 of his own beautifully done maps of various parts of Middle-Earth.
In short, lovers of cartography and fantasy should all hunt this down, preferably in hardcover as the binding on paperback isn't that sturdy and is liable to more stress and wear by the wide format of the book.
What you get here is 200 or so pages of maps, presented in chronological order, reprinted and reproduced more-or-less exactly as drawn and published in their original sources - often by the writers of the various novels that are the predominate texts from which the maps are chosen. In most cases the maps are on the recto and a brief text describing little bit about the context - the work and author at the least - on the verso. A complete listing of all the maps included can be found in the Wiki entry for the book, but briefly they range from an 8th-century Spanish monks' conception of Eden to "The Four Lands" from Terry Brooks' SHANNARA series and "The Land" from Stephen R. Donaldson's THOMAS COVENANT trilogy. There are maps from religious and secular Utopias, humorous maps, maps from children's books, etc. The most-represented writers are Edgar Rice Burroughs, with 13 maps from his many series, and J.R.R. Tolkien with 7 of his own beautifully done maps of various parts of Middle-Earth.
In short, lovers of cartography and fantasy should all hunt this down, preferably in hardcover as the binding on paperback isn't that sturdy and is liable to more stress and wear by the wide format of the book.
August 22, 2020
A very unusual sort of book. It's essentially a collection of the maps that illustrators have included in the beginning of various fantasy books. Unless you're very heavily into fantasy books, or into cartography in general, you may find a lot of this book to be redundant or uninteresting. After all, if you've already read a series or are very interested in it, you likely have already seen the "official" maps of the places involved. For example, many copies of the Winnie-the-Pooh books contain Ernest Shepard's map of the 100 Acre Wood, and most copies of The Wind in the Willows also contain the map of that particular area. And fancier reproductions of those maps can be had, as well.
What I probably liked the best were the three old-timey "The United States, as Seen by..." maps, which showed disproportionate maps of the US with a Californian, Texan, or Bostonian -centric view. I would probably find an entire book of such maps very interesting!
But this book... Well, I don't read enough fantasy books to really get into most of it, but the very idea of it is charming and it's definitely a book worth having on one's bookshelf, if only for the uniqueness of the idea!
What I probably liked the best were the three old-timey "The United States, as Seen by..." maps, which showed disproportionate maps of the US with a Californian, Texan, or Bostonian -centric view. I would probably find an entire book of such maps very interesting!
But this book... Well, I don't read enough fantasy books to really get into most of it, but the very idea of it is charming and it's definitely a book worth having on one's bookshelf, if only for the uniqueness of the idea!
December 21, 2025
Collected maps of fantasy lands
Seanan McGuire recently published a story-like thing called A Traveler's Guide to Fantastic Countries. It purports to be advertising copy for a travel agency that can arrange trips to such places as Avalon, Niflheim, and The Lost City of Z. This naturally made me think of other, less tongue-in-cheek reference works of fantastic lands. Two that I used to own are this one, An Atlas of Fantasy and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic (which I will also review one of these days).
J.B. Post was the map librarian of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and also an avid fantasy reader. (I get these facts from Lester del Rey's introduction.) Because of this he was aware of something most readers didn't know: that maps existed of the lands in which many fantasy stories take place. Many of these maps were unpublished. For instance, C.S. Lewis drew a map of Narnia, a reproduction of which can be found in the Bodleian Library. That map is included in this book.
When I got this book recently, I asked myself which was the first fantasy I ever read that included a map. I answered myself, The Lord of the Rings. But I was wrong. A glance through the table of contents listed two other fantasy maps that I certainly saw before I ever read LOTR: "Environs of Toad Hall" from The Wind in the Willows and "Pooh's Turf" from the Winnie the Pooh books. Both were instantly familiar. I even remembered the signature below the Pooh map, "DRAWN BY ME AND MR SHEPARD HELPED". ME here means A.A. Milne's son Christopher Robin -- Mr Shepard is Pooh illustrator Ernest H. Shephard. J.R.R. Tolkien's maps are of course also included -- seven of them.
The maps are all black-and-white. They are not in any particular order that I can identify. I suppose Post had some reason for the order he chose, but I don't know what it is. And there's no index. On the other hand, there are only about a hundred maps here -- it is not terribly difficult to scan the entire table of contents looking for anything you want.
This is a book one could read from cover to cover and enjoy. Unfortunately, the used copy I managed to get hold of is not in any condition for such use. I will hope that someone someday scans it and makes it available in electronic form.
Blog review.
Seanan McGuire recently published a story-like thing called A Traveler's Guide to Fantastic Countries. It purports to be advertising copy for a travel agency that can arrange trips to such places as Avalon, Niflheim, and The Lost City of Z. This naturally made me think of other, less tongue-in-cheek reference works of fantastic lands. Two that I used to own are this one, An Atlas of Fantasy and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic (which I will also review one of these days).
J.B. Post was the map librarian of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and also an avid fantasy reader. (I get these facts from Lester del Rey's introduction.) Because of this he was aware of something most readers didn't know: that maps existed of the lands in which many fantasy stories take place. Many of these maps were unpublished. For instance, C.S. Lewis drew a map of Narnia, a reproduction of which can be found in the Bodleian Library. That map is included in this book.
When I got this book recently, I asked myself which was the first fantasy I ever read that included a map. I answered myself, The Lord of the Rings. But I was wrong. A glance through the table of contents listed two other fantasy maps that I certainly saw before I ever read LOTR: "Environs of Toad Hall" from The Wind in the Willows and "Pooh's Turf" from the Winnie the Pooh books. Both were instantly familiar. I even remembered the signature below the Pooh map, "DRAWN BY ME AND MR SHEPARD HELPED". ME here means A.A. Milne's son Christopher Robin -- Mr Shepard is Pooh illustrator Ernest H. Shephard. J.R.R. Tolkien's maps are of course also included -- seven of them.
The maps are all black-and-white. They are not in any particular order that I can identify. I suppose Post had some reason for the order he chose, but I don't know what it is. And there's no index. On the other hand, there are only about a hundred maps here -- it is not terribly difficult to scan the entire table of contents looking for anything you want.
This is a book one could read from cover to cover and enjoy. Unfortunately, the used copy I managed to get hold of is not in any condition for such use. I will hope that someone someday scans it and makes it available in electronic form.
Blog review.
November 11, 2010
Another book from my childhood, a good companion with Alberto Manguel's The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic this has all kinds of maps of various fantasy lands from their original publications. Made me love maps as a child.
July 25, 2018
Terrific book, even if only for the impetus it gave me to read more obscure fantasy authors--would I ever have attempted James Branch Cabell without it? A wonderful array of maps from earlier fantasy novels--a surprising number of them, given that the explosion in fantasy publishing hadn't quite happened yet.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
August 12, 2009
It's a nonfiction book about fantasy worlds, including worlds created by writers such as Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Tolkien and many others, even such writers as Thomas More's "Utopia" and John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."
Well worth getting. Just cool to browse through.
Well worth getting. Just cool to browse through.
September 26, 2014
This is a collection of maps from fantasy novels-- the original maps included in the novels, not redrawn. It was put together in the 1970s so doesn't include a lot of the ones you would put in if you made such a book today. You can get it for the cost of shipping from Amazon.
December 5, 2018
I got this book at a Coles bookstore in a mall when I was a kid and read it over and over again. I love fantasy novels and I love maps. What a perfect combination. It influenced me a lot.
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