Middle Earth Map annotated by JRR Tolkien acquired by Bodleian Libraries

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

The Bodleian has scooped the definitive version of Middle Earth - a map annotated by JRR Tolkien

Tolkien’s Middle-earth – the invented land where The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place – has long been debated, pored over and theorised by legions of fans of the author.

Now the Bodleian Library in Oxford has acquired the definitive version of the mythical place, offering an exciting new resource for Tolkien scholars full of linguistic and topographic details about the author’s fantasy world.

A working document, the map was annotated in 1969 by the great author together with the acclaimed illustrator Pauline Baynes, who was commissioned to produce a poster map of Middle-earth.

At the time, The Lord of the Rings had never been illustrated. Tolkien, who was deeply concerned with the portrayal of his invented world, was keen to ensure Middle-earth was accurately depicted.

Copious notes and markings can be seen in green ink or pencil on the map, most notably Tolkien’s comments equating key places in Middle-earth with real world cities. "Hobbiton is assumed to be approx. at [the] latitude of Oxford," wrote the author.

The annotations were made on a map originally drawn for publication in 1954 by Tolkien’s youngest son, Christopher, and included in the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings as a folded leaf at the back of the books. The map was pulled out from one of her own volumes of The Lord of the Rings by Baynes and then annotated with Tolkein.

Unseen for decades, it first emerged in October 2015, when Blackwell’s Rare Books in Oxford put it on display and offered it for sale – triggering waves of excitement among fans, collectors and the media.

Having belonged to Baynes until she passed away in 2008, the rare piece of Tolkien ephemera now joins the Tolkien archive at the Bodleian, the largest collection of original Tolkien manuscripts and drawings in the world.

“The creation of maps was central to Tolkien’s storytelling and this particular map provides a glimpse into the creative process that produced some of the first images of Middle-earth, with which so many of us are now familiar,” says Chris Fletcher, the Bodleian’s Keeper of Special Collections.

“We’re delighted to have been able to acquire this map and it’s particularly appropriate that we are keeping it in Oxford. 

"Tolkien spent almost the whole of his adult life in the city and was clearly thinking about its geographical significance as he composed elements of the map. It would have been disappointing had it disappeared into a private collection or gone abroad.”

The working document reveals how the creatures which enliven the final poster map - wolves, horses, cattle, elephants and camels - were all suggested by Tolkien. Baynes even drew the animals in the exact locations he specified.

“Elephants appear in the Great battle outside Minas Tirith (as they did in Italy under Pyrrhus) but they would be in place in the blank squares of Harad – also Camels,” wrote Tolkien.

Other fascinating insights include Tolkien’s specification for the colours of the ships and the design on their sails: “Eleven-ships small, white or grey...Numenorean (Gondor) Ships Black and Silver...Corsairs had red sails with black star or eye”.

Tolkien’s also clarified place names, adding many names which are not mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954. As they are mostly in his Elvish language, Sindarin, he also gave an explanation of their meanings.

He inserted a new place name for the area west of Minhiriath and provided a translation from the Elvish, “Eryn Vorn [= Black Forest] a forest region of dark [pine?] trees”.

Geographical notes include information about the climate of various places, making Baynes’ drawings of flora and fauna accurate, and how “Minas Tirith is about [the] latitude of Ravenna [northern Italy] (but is 900 miles east of Hobbiton more near Belgrade). Bottom of the map (1400 miles [from Hobbiton]) is about latitude of Jerusalem.”

The purchase of the map was funded with assistance from the Victoria & Albert Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the Bodleian. It joins the Bodleian’s extensive collection of Tolkien material, which has been housed at the Libraries since 1979. The map also complements the Libraries’ existing works by Baynes, which include the paste-up and the original watercolour of her poster map of Middle-earth.

The Library plans to put the annotated map on display soon.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/literary-history/art553332-middle-earth-tolkien-bodleian-libraries-map