Plotted

The Age - Spectrum 29 September 2018 has a two page article - 'From one world to another' - which discussed two books showing how authors use landscapes in fiction. John Sutherland has edited a collection of essays published as Literary Landscapes: charting the worlds of classic literature. The seventy illustrated essays  include three Australian works of fiction including Kate Grenville's, The Secret River, Patrick White's Voss and Tim Winton's Cloudstreet. Another new book on a similar topic is The Writer's Map: an atlas of imaginary lands edited by Huw Lewis-Jones.

These titles are not available in my local libraries as yet but I did find a copy of Plotted: a literary atlas by Andrew DeGraff and Daniel Harmon. The book evolved from deGraff's desire to provide spatial context for his favourite landscapes of literature. He chose nineteen titles including Robinson Crusoe, Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, and A Wrinkle in Time. Arranging the books in chronological order deGraff then presents his visual presentation usually in one double page but sometimes multiple pages. Daniel Harmon has written a short essay for each title.

The representations are not maps in the true sense but the artist's graphical interpretation of movement or relationships in the story. The 'map' for Pride and Prejudice consists of a series of different coloured intersecting buildings representing major characters. DeGraff provides a different way of looking at the plot of a book.