The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Paperback)

by Karen Wynn Fonstad (Author), Christopher Tolkien (Author), J.R.R. Tolkien (Author) "ILUVATAR SENT THE VALAR to order the world, preparing Arda for the coming of his Children - Elves and Men..." (more)
Key Phrases: First Age, The Atlas of Middle-earth, Minas Tirith (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The publishing world is full of Tolkien spinoff products, some trivial and ephemeral--but some, like this thoroughly researched atlas, are genuinely classy. Karen Wynn Fonstad is a qualified geographer and cartographer who first mapped Middle-Earth in 1981 and has since added much new detail based on those endless volumes of drafts, abandoned passages, alternative versions, and laundry lists published since Tolkien's death. She fills in gaps and details in the familiar Third Age maps from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, goes back in time to map Middle-Earth's First and Second Ages, and reconstructs the route and timescale of every important journey in the stories. There are local maps of key places like the Mines of Moria, Lothlorien, Isengard, Minas Tirth, the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and the volcanic Mount Doom. War maps cover the saga's notable battles, up to the hopeless last stand at Mordor gate and the tiny later skirmish known in Shire records as the Battle of Bywater. Thematic maps show Middle-Earth's distribution of climate, geological features, vegetation, people, and (most importantly to Tolkien) languages.... It's all done tremendously seriously and would make a fine gift for enthusiastic Tolkien fans, except that they'll have bought it already. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

From Library Journal
Tolkien loved maps and geography played a great importance in his books. In the paperback revision of a hardcover that is out of print, cartographer Fonstad here details that aspect of these stories.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; Revised edition (January 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395535166
• ISBN-13: 978-0395535165
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,037,584 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your official tour guide to Middle-earth.., May 14, 2000

By	Charles Pinney (Boone, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you've ever been one flipping to the maps in "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" , or "The Silmarillion" to see where the action is taking place, then this book is for you.

Karen Wynn Fonstad has done a remarkable job of mapping Middle-earth. The atlas is broken down into various sections, each easy to navigate to find what you're looking for.

The First Age section is perfect for readers of "The Silmarillion", all the important places are mapped along with ample notes and observations.

The Second Age deals with the fall of Numenor, a worthy companion to those reading "Unfinished Tales".

The majority of the book deals with the Third Age. This is where "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" takes place. There are maps showing the kingdoms of the Dunedain as well as the migration of the dwarves and the hobbits.

There are regional maps detailing the Shire, the Misty Mountains, Eriador, and Mordor. Two lengthy sections are devoted to the Hobbit and LotR, showing all the key places in the books. Fantastic maps to look over again and again.

Towards the end of the book are included the thematic maps. Very interesting. These show the landforms, climate, vegetation, population and languages spoken.

Overall, if you're remotely interesting in learning more about Middle-earth, or you're just interested in great maps, pick this up. Enjoy.

83 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Geography as it should be done, October 11, 2000

By A Customer

The Atlas of Middle-Earth is an excellent work of geographic reasoning in the great tradition of Eratostenes. The attention to detail, the realism in the drawings, and the breadth of topics in this book are difficult to measure. I am a professional geographer, and I understand how labor-intensive the completion of this book must have been. Literally thousands of decisions made by Mrs. Fonstad had to fit with Tolkien's descriptions and intentions. That Tolkien's descriptions can stand up to such scrutiny of accuracy and internal consistency is a testament to Tolkien's magic (many authors' designed worlds do not).

I also wish to dispell a misconception by an earlier reviewer. The review by Linards Ticmanis from Germany is in error about Mrs. Fonstad's portrayal of the world maps. He suggested that her maps show a world "only half as large as the real earth" and that Tolkien has designed Arda to be Earth (although Tolkien denied that Middle-Earth was Europe in The Lost Road, p. 25). However, the radius of the planet can be calculated from her maps by placing an orthographic projection diagram with lines of latitude and longitude on top of her maps (her world maps are orthographic projections). When a degree of longitude or latitude is compared to its ground distance (supplied by reading Tolkien), it is quite easy to calculate the radius of the planet, approximately 4200 miles (6770 km). This compares to 3963 miles (6378 km) radius for the earth. These two measurements are very similar, and the idea that Mrs. Fonstad's maps show a world that is "only half as large as the real earth" is in error. In any case, the Atlas of Middle-Earth is about as "Tolkien Purist" as you can get; and this adds to its value immensely.

250 of 287 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fonstad's numerous errors have NOT been corrected, June 3, 2001

By	Michael Martinez (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This book remains, as I noted in my March 15 review (based on an earlier edition), the best available cartographical resource for Tolkien's world available, other than Christopher Tolkien's maps. Unfortunately, this book simply doesn't depict Tolkien's Middle-earth with any appreciable degree of accuracy.

All they did was slap a new cover on a work which is now out-of-date. The practice of reissuing popular Tolkien books and tertiary resources like Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth is to be expected, of course, since Peter Jackson's movies are going to drive Tolkien-mania to frenzied heights never before seen.

What is good about this book is the fact that Fonstad makes an effort to chart everything in the stories. You have a quick reference which conveys an idea of who went where, when.

But don't accord this book any real authority. You have to double-check everything Fonstad does in order to see where the errors are. Some of the worst examples are her dual locations for Rhosgobel (the placement south of the Old Forest Road is the correct one, according to "The Ring Goes South" in The Fellowship of the Ring), the placement of Belegost south of the Gulf of Lune (Tolkien said it was at about the same latitude as Lake Nenuial in Unfinished Tales), and her shaving 100 miles off the width of Eriador. The gross error concerning Eriador's width affects all her calculations, including the lengths of journeys for Frodo and Bilbo.

Movements for peoples in the First Age are also inaccurate. The Easterlings entered Beleriand in three waves. The Folk of Ulfang crossed the Ered Luin in the path of the Edain, but the Folk of Bor and later Easterlings passed north around the Ered Luin. This information was published in The War of the Jewels, which Fonstad did not use as a resource. In the Second Age, she ignores Unfinished Tales completely and places Thranduil (the son of Oropher) in northern Greenwood, instead of in the southern part of the forest.

Her depiction of Dale's borders in the Third Age is grossly inaccurate, and Druwaith Iaur is placed to the north of where Christopher Tolkien indicates it should be on his map. Many of these errors, by themselves, are small things. But nearly every map has one or more problems with it. In some cases it's obvious Fonstad's research was superceded by later books she didn't have access to. But some of the gaffes are simply inexplicable. It was my sincere hope the errors would be corrected in this edition. But apparently the publisher just felt a new cover would hide the problems.

Is the book worth buying? Sure. Anyone who wants a quick visual reference to Middle-earth will find this volume invaluable. But if you're planning to use it to win trivia contests or argue with your friends over Tolkien minutiae, pray the other people don't refer to the original books.

Tolkien readers need a new cartographical reference. Hopefully, one will come along some day that doesn't look this bad.