Fantasy Map Collections
- Post, J. B. An Atlas of Fantasy. Rev. ed. Ballantine, 1979.
Fantasy Map Design
- Anders, Lou. “Mapping the Fantastic: A Chat with Cartographer Robert Lazzaretti.” Mundie Kids (blog), 22 June 2015.
- Blando, Jared. How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps: Step by Step Cartography for Gamers and Fans. New York: Impact Books, 2015.
- Davis, Lauren. “10 Rules for Making Better Fantasy Maps.” io9.com, 19 Jan 2015.
- Dennard, Susan “Making Maps: The Weight of Imaginary Geography.” Tor/Forge blog, 4 Jan 2016.
- Dickinson, Seth. “How Seth Dickinson Built the Epic Fantasy World of Baru Cormorant.” Omnivoracious (blog), 30 Oct 2015.
- Gailey, Sarah. “Hippos, Worldbuilding, and Amateur Map-Making.” 2017. Tor.com, 1 Jan 2019.
- Grossman, Lev. “An Interview with the Cartographer: The Making of the Magician King Map.” Levgrossman.com (blog), 23 June 2011.
- Hinton, James. “Real World Maps vs. Fantasy Maps: Which Makes Sense?” The Worldbuilding School (blog), 22 April 2015.
- Malyon, Serena. “Mapping the Dreamlands of Kij Johnson’s The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe.” Tor.com, 2 Aug 2016.
- O’Connell, A. J. “Making Maps for Books: Two Cartographers Tell Us How It’s Done.” Book Riot, 2 Sept 2015.
- Paul, Tim. “Creating the Map for The Drowning Eyes.” Tor.com, 13 Jan 2016.
- Roberts, Jonathan. “Mapping An Ember in the Ashes.” Fantastic Maps (blog), 10 May 2015.
- Stewart, Isaac. “How to Make a Fantasy World Map.” Tor.com, 11 Dec 2013.
- Taylor, Rachel. “Mapping The Freedom Race with Lucinda Roy.” Tor/Forge Blog, 28 Apr 2021.
- Tor.com. “Unveiling the World Map for JY Yang’s Fantastical Tensorate Series.” Tor.com, 20 Jun 2017.
Maps and the Creative Process
- Abercrombie, Joe. “The Role of Maps in Narrative: ‘The Heroes,’” in Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer (Abrams Image, 2013), pp. 227-230.
- Card, Orson Scott. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest, 1990.
- Kirkpatrick, Russell. “On Maps and Authorial Authority in Fantasy.” FableCroft (blog), 13 Sept 2017.
- Kirstein, Rosemary. “Map Work.” Blog post, 31 January 2016.
- Stevenson, Robert Louis. “My First Book: Treasure Island.” The Idler 6, Aug 1894.
Critical and Personal Essays on Fantasy Maps
- Acks, Alex. “Tolkien’s Map and the Messed Up Mountains of Middle-earth.” Tor.com, 1 Aug 2017.
- ———. “Tolkien’s Map and the Perplexing River Systems of Middle-earth.” Tor.com, 10 Oct 2017.
- Ahmed, Saladin. “At Home in Fantasy’s Nerd-Built Worlds.” NPR.org, 6 Jan 2013.
- Bushell, Sally. “The Slipperiness of Literary Maps: Critical Cartography and Literary Cartography.” Cartographica 47, no. 3 (2012), pp. 149-160.
- Chabon, Michael. “Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood.” The New York Review of Books, 16 July 2009.
- Cheney, Matthew. “Maps and Fantasy.” The Mumpsimus (blog), 12 July 2006.
- Cep, Casey N. “The Allure of the Map.” The New Yorker (online), 22 Jan 2014.
- Crowe, Jonathan. “Here Be Blank Spaces: Vaguely Medieval Fantasy Maps.” The New York Review of Science Fiction 300 (Aug 2013), pp. 14-16.
- ———. “The Territory Is Not the Map.” The Map Room (blog), 27 Sept 2017.
- ———. “What Does a Fantasy Map Look Like?” Tor.com, 19 Mar 2019.
- ———. “Fantasy Maps Don’t Belong in the Hands of Fantasy Characters.” Tor.com, 28 May 2019.
- ———. “Where Do Fantasy Maps Come From?” Tor.com, 23 Sep 2019.
- ———. “Celebrating Christopher Tolkien’s Cartographic Legacy.” Tor.com, 22 Jan 2020.
- ———. “Maps in Science Fiction.” The New York Review of Science Fiction 356 (Feb 2022), pp. 23-27.
- Danielson, Stentor. “Re-reading the Map of Middle-earth: Fan Cartography’s Engagement with Tolkien’s Legendarium.” Journal of Tolkien Research 6, no. 1 (2018).
- Daub, Adrian. “Here at the End of All Things.” Longreads, Aug 2017.
- Ekman, Stefan. “An Asian Age of Discovery—and a Lost Hand.” Mythotopes (blog), 26 Dec 2010.
- ———. “What’s the Point of Mapping Imaginary Worlds?” Mythotopes (blog), 3 Feb 2010.
- ———. Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings. Wesleyan University Press, 2013.
- Elliott, Kate. “Maps (and Miscellaneous).” I Make Up Worlds (blog), 25 June 2012.
- Haft, Adele J. “Literature and Cartography,” in The History of Cartography, Volume 6: Cartography in the Twentieth Century, Mark Monmonier, ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2015), pp. 782-787.
- Harper, Tom. “What Is a Fantasy Map?” British Library website, 27 Oct 2016.
- Harpold, Terry. “Verne’s Cartographies.” Science Fiction Studies 32, no. 1 (Mar 2005), pp. 18-42.
- Hester, Jessica Leigh. “Escape Into These Fantastical, Imaginary Maps.” Atlas Obscura, 9 Apr 2020.
- Jacobs, Frank. “509 – Magical Siberia: A Russian Take on Middle-earth.” Strange Maps (blog), 11 April 2011.
- Johnson, Victoria. “The Maps We Wandered Into as Kids.” The Awl, 7 Feb 2012.
- Jones, Diana Wynne. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Rev. ed. New York: Firebird, 2006.
- Jönsson, Johan. “The Reader and the Map.” Strange Horizons, 10 July 2006.
- Kaveney, Roz. “Maps.” The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, John Clute and John Grant, eds. (1997; Orbit, 1999).
- Lambert, Léopold. “The Militaristic Essence of Cartography in the Invisible Frontier by Schuiten and Peeters.” The Funambulist, 22 Jan 2015.
- Leroy, Fabrice. “Games Without Frontiers: The Representation of Politics and the Politics of Representation in Schuiten and Peeters’s La Frontière Invisible.” History and Politics in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels, Mark McKinney, ed. (University Press of Mississippi, 2008), pp. 117-136.
- Lewis-Jones, Huw. The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands. Thames & Hudson, 2018.
- McCalmont, Jonathan. “The Aesthetics of Fantasy—Part One.” SF Diplomat (blog), 25 Feb 2007.
- ———. “The Aesthetics of Fantasy—Part Two.” SF Diplomat (blog), 27 Feb 2007.
- Muehreke, Phillip C. and Juliana O. Muehreke. “Maps in Literature.” Geographical Review 64, no. 3 (July 1974), pp. 317-338.
- Murphy, Ciara. “From Middle Earth to Hundred Acre Wood: putting fiction on the map.” The Guardian, 11 Nov 2015.
- O’Connell, A. J. “On Maps in Fantasy Novels.” Book Riot, 24 Aug 2015.
- Padrón, Ricardo. “Mapping Imaginary Worlds,” in Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow Jr., eds. (University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 255-287.
- Patton, Jeffrey C. and Nancy B. Ryckman. “Maps in Children’s Literature.” Cartographic Perspectives 6 (Summer 1990), pp. 3-12. DOI:10.14714/CP06.1110
- Porkc, Thijs. “The Medieval in Middle-Earth: Thror’s Map.” Dutch Anglo-Saxonist (blog), 19 Nov 2015.
- Ranson, Clare. “Cartography in Children’s Literature.” Sustaining the Vision: Selected Papers from the Annual Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship (International Association of School Librarianship, 1996), pp. 164-66.
- Renk, Thorsten. “Mapping Darkover.” Online essay, n.d.
- SF Signal. “Mind Meld: Which Fantasy Maps Are Your Favorites?” SF Signal, 24 Aug 2011.
- ———. “Mind Meld Makeup: Myke Cole on Fantasy Maps.” SF Signal, 14 Feb 2012.
- Sibley, Brian. “Mapping the Imagination.” Brian Sibley: His Blog (blog), 1 Oct 2006.
- Squire, Ringer. “Why are there no ‘towers of a distant city’ on the map of Middle-earth?” TheOneRing.net, 11 Sept 2010.
- Smith, Cynthia. “Jules Verne and His Geographical Novels.” Worlds Revealed (blog), 25 Jan 2022.
- Stahl, Hannah. “Mapping the Imaginary.” Library of Congress Magazine 5, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 2016), pp. 10-13.
- Tam, Nicholas. “Here Be Cartographers: Reading the Fantasy Map.” Nick’s Café Canadien (blog), 18 April 2011.
- Wilde, Fran. “A Map Year.” Blog post, 30 Jan 2016.
- XenkanMonk. “The Bigass Things I Hate In Fantasy Maps Post.” Blog post, 25 Jan 2012.
- ———. “The Bigass Fantasy Maps I Love Post.” Blog post, 7 Feb 2012.
To Investigate
These I have not seen. Citations may not be accurate.
- Carlson, Claudia. “Mapping Real and Imaginary Worlds: Graphic Design in the Pursuit of Learning.” The Portolan 87 (Fall 2013).
- Day, Frank W. “The Role and Purpose of the Map in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature.” M.A. thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1979.
- Duane, Diane. “Cartography for Other Worlds: A Short Look at a Neglected Subject.” SFWA Bulletin 11, no. 5 (1976), pp. 10-14.
- Ekman, Stefan. “Exploring the Maps of Secondary Worlds.” Paper presented at the 29th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, Florida, 19-22 March 2008.
- Hann, Deborah G. “Maps in Children’s Literature: Their Uses, Forms, and Functions.” M.A. thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2008.
- Hunt, Peter. “Landscapes and Journeys, Metaphors and Maps: The Distinctive Feature of English Fantasy.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 12, no. 1 (1987), pp. 11-14.
- McDermott, Paul. “The Design of Fictional Maps.” Proceedings of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, Fall 1976, pp. 348-362.
- Petel, Claude. “La Cartographie des ‘Voyages Extraordinaires.’” Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne 123 (1997), pp. 42-44.
- Sibley, Brian. The Maps of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
- Walker, R. C. “The Cartography of Fantasy,” Mythlore 7, no. 4 (1981), pp. 37-38.
- Westphal, Bertrand. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.