This past Saturday I came upon The Allure of the
Map
in the New Yorker on line. The writer
is, as I am, fascinated by the maps that accompany many wonderful works of
fiction. He includes Middle Earth, Earth Sea, and Treasure Island. I do know these
and many more.
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| Treasure Island |
While such maps are wonderful, the ones I
really like to see included in a book are the ones for smaller areas:
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| Cadfael's Shrewsbury |
Towns, like the maps of York that Candace
Robb included in her Owen Archer series, or Brother Cadfael's Shrewsbury Abbey and its environs, or Miss Marple’s St. Mary Mead...
 |
| St. Mary Mead |
...and,especially, floor plans. Like those
sometimes included in Agatha Christie mysteries and such, to let you know how
the house was laid out. These two help me
orient myself within the story. And let me know who was where when the butler
did it.
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| First floor map from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None |
The handiest of these maps are printed as
the endpapers so I don’t have to thumb back through to find a page - just flip to the
front or back cover and voila!
 |
| from Dark Fire - London c.1541 |
These two are from C.J. Sansom’s series
featuring the lawyer Matthew Shardlake.
Historical fiction at its best.
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| Endpapers from Sovereign |
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