The Wisconsin cartographer who mapped Tolkien's fantasy world

Do I love maps because of the fantasy books I read as a kid? Did I love (and still love) the fantasy books because I love maps? I may never know.

I've heard of the Atlas of Middle Earth but never knew this amazing story behind it. Thanks for posting it, bookofjoe!

Also, really cool to know she did D&D maps too. Maps are just rad

I love that she could build so much of the world from the geographic descriptions, of things like mountains and rivers.

I think it’s the latter for me. We had a 1960s Reader’s Digest atlas when I was a kid that gave me countless hours of entertainment examining the various maps of the world and the regions within it (there were also maps showing continental drift, a new(!) idea at the time, the paths of the 15th–16th century explorers and I forget what else. The endpapers were reproductions of a 16th century world map.