Reddit Reddit reviews The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth

We found 9 Reddit comments about The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth
Houghton Mifflin
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9 Reddit comments about The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth:

u/rabbithasacat · 8 pointsr/tolkienfans

I strongly suggest you disregard advice to buy ANY book by David Day. They are not accurate, and are full of stuff he just makes up. Day is the laughingstock of the fandom; he's even been banned by the Tolkien Society from attending their future events.

But don't worry, there's lots of good-quality stuff out there for your husband to treasure!

If he has read only The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy, look for an attractive edition of The Silmarillion (there are many). This is the great backstory to Lord of the Rings, the legendary past that constantly gets referred to in LOTR. If he hasn't read it yet, that's the Next Big Step for a Tolkien fan.

If he's already read the Silmarillion, Check his shelf to see whether he already has a copy of Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth. If not, that's definitely a great gift for him or any Tolkien fan. "A book of maps" doesn't do it justice -- it's not just geography, but changes over time, populations, heroic journeys, and famous battles, all laid out in a way that keeps you turning the page in a way you wouldn't with a real-life atlas. The way the maps are presented also helps the reader visuallize the progression of the Ages of the World, even though there's not a dedicated timeline.

If he has both of these, go for a copy of Unfinished Tales, which contains extra material that didn't make it into the published LOTR and Silmarillion. He'll love the extras about the Palantiri and what Gandalf got up to while Bilbo and the Dwarves were making do without him.

If he has all that, you have choices to make. If he's graphic's oriented, he may like the John Howe decorative map set or the Alan Lee sketchbook or half a dozen options from artists who've tackled Tolkien. If he's a calendar guy, you can pick from at least that many popular options every year.

If he's a hardcore reader who has made it through the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and still wants more, he may want to take the deep dive into the 12-volume History of Middle-earth, which is very affordable now that it's in good-quality paperback. But you probably want to check with him on that before buying them all; some volumes are, well, pretty hardcore in their density, and some are best read sequentially. One that would be fine as a standalone is Vol. 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth. Lots of good lore and interesting things in that one.

u/biznatch11 · 5 pointsr/lotr

!!! MAPS !!!


I have lots of maps and took pictures. I saw this post earlier but just got home and had time to dig everything up. Note that I'm not an expert and haven't looked at some of this stuff in a while, and haven't actually read much of the 12 books of The History of Middle Earth (yet...).

Here's a picture of Beleriand from The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

--> Beleriand

This is pretty much the map in the back of The Silmarillion. You can see there's basically a big desert at the top. To the north of that is the Iron Mountains behind which are Angband and Utumno. Middle Earth is to the south (or kinda south east I think) of this whole thing, and as others have said this was all destroyed long before the events in LOTR. If you look at any map of Middle Earth, eg. the one at the back of FOTR, you'll see some mountains, Ered Luin, at the top left. These are visible at the bottom right of the above map of Beleriand, so you can see where Beleriand and Middle Earth used to connect.

Here's a picture from The Shaping of Middle Earth which is the 4th volume in the 12 volume The History of Middle Earth.

--> Beleriand north showing Angband

This is a draft by Tolkien and is similar to the above map from the Silmarillion but it extends farther north, and you can see the Iron Mountains (called Mts. of Iron in red print near the top), above which is Angband.

This last one is from the same book but is poor quality but I found a better version online. It's from the Ambarkanta section. It was also by Tolkien and I think is even more preliminary than the above map.

--> Ambarkanta map IV showing Utumno

To get you oriented, Valinor is on the left over the sea (the liney/squiggly bits are water). The middle section is Middle Earth (a rough draft of it anyways). At the very top is the Iron Mountains and above that is Utunmo, though it's hard to read. This may not match perfectly what's in the text as Tolkien may have changed in his head where things are in relation to each other without redrawing maps. There is some text in the book that says Tolkien's original idea was that Melkor rebuilt his fortress of Angband on the same site as Utumno which is why the sites seem so close in the 2nd two maps above. It says that Tolkien later revised this idea so that Angband was at a separate location, which I think is why the 2nd map above (Beleriand north) which is more complete than the Ambarkanta map shows Angband near the Iron Mountains but not Utumno.

A lot of The History of Middle Earth contain a lot of this type of stuff that describes how Tolkien's ideas about Middle Earth and such changed over time.

And lastly, just because, here's the map I have on my living room wall. It's a Middle Earth foil map that I got at a campus poster sale about 7 years ago then got framed and put behind glass (which cost significantly more than the map itself, but was so worth it :) ).

u/ebneter · 3 pointsr/tolkienfans

The maps included here are pretty good.

u/Kriedrik_Sure · 3 pointsr/prancingponypod

It came in a little set called "The Maps of Tolkien's Middle Earth" by Brian Sibley and John Howe. The one I have has the famous green door artwork on the slipcase. There's also this edition though.

https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Tolkiens-Middle-earth-Brian-Sibley/dp/061839110X

u/Steuard · 3 pointsr/tolkienfans

Here's one possibility: https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Tolkiens-Middle-earth-Brian-Sibley/dp/061839110X

It sounds like each of the four poster maps included is 28"x28", and is folded in the box; you'd need to get your own frame. I'm not aware of any other options, for better or worse.

u/Mughi · 2 pointsr/lotr

You might look for a copy of this or of this. The Fonstad book is very good. The "Composite Pathways" map on pg 172-173 is exactly what you want.

u/ChadCloman · 1 pointr/tolkienfans

I found Sibley's The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-Earth to be quite helpful. Poster sized maps of Beleriand, the Hobbit area, and the LOTR area.

u/Werthead · 1 pointr/Fantasy

John Howe's maps of Middle-earth (available in a big box set) are pretty good, and his map of Middle-earth is definitive as far as I'm concerned.

Jonathan Roberts created a set of maps for A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones called The Lands of Ice and Fire which are excellent. I have the big map of the entire world on my wall.

Terry Pratchett has a whole set of maps for his Discworld books, including the entire Discworld itself and the city of Ankh-Morpork (both twice, in fact, in The Streets of Ankh-Morpork, The Compleat Ankh-Morpork, The Discworld Mapp and The Compleat Discworld Atlas).

You can buy a map of Roshar from Brandon Sanderson's website and one of Temerant from the Worldbuilders Store.

u/Spiderbeard · 1 pointr/tolkienfans

Nice, I have
this one.