Paris Book

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.