The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands Author: Edited by Huw Lewis-JonesISBN-13: 978-0-500-03087-5Publisher: Thames & HudsonGuideline Price: £25, 256ppIn 1894, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote: “I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to believe.” In his case, it was a map he drew during a wet Scottish summer to amuse his stepson that sparked the inspiration for his most famous novel. The fictitious island he sketched bears placenames, Spyeglass Hill and Skeleton Island, and notes to mariners about tides and foul ground. As the map progressed, his imagination stirred, and once he had marked an X in blood-red ink, noting “bulk of treasure here”, Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins were gestating in his mind. In The Writer’s Map, An Atlas of Imaginary Lands, this hand-drawn chart is reproduced alongside an essay by Robert MacFarlane, who confesses that he, like Stevenson, is a cartophiliac, unable to resist the lure of maps of nowhere. The book’s editor, Huw Lewis-Jones, has compiled a great compendium of maps ancient and modern, each tethered to a particular writer, a particular book. To assist in this, he has assembled a group of contributors to throw light on the symbiosis between maps and fiction, Philip Pullman, David Mitchell, Robert MacFarlane and Joanne Harris among them.This marriage of writing and illustration ranges across continents, centuries and every reach of human fancy, charting the fascination so many writers have with the topography of their imaginary worlds. Some have drawn their own maps. Admire the intricate map that William Faulkner drew for his novel Absalom, Absalom, and contrast it with the endearingly scruffy map that Jack Kerouac roughed out when he was writing On the Road. On graph paper, Tolkien calculated the distances his characters cover across the terrain of Mordor, while his great friend, CS Lewis, creator of Narnia, initially sketched out a map, then handed it over to the illustrator, saying he wanted it to be more like a medieval map than an ordnance survey, with “ ... a few heraldic-looking ships, whales and dolphins in the sea.” The famous medieval Mappa Mundi is reproduced here, described by David Mitchell as “ ... a magnificent farrago of best guesses, classical locations, biblical myth and not a lot of sea”. “A magnificent farrago” sums up this whole collection of maps and essays. Discover for yourselves.Margaret Hickey is a writer and critic who lives beside the Shannon in Co Galway