Some maps are notoriously difficult to read so it is, perhaps, ironic that Geoff Sawers, a writer and poet from the UK, has designed this rather stunning literary map full of some of the most well-read names in British literature.
Each of the 181 writers included in this map are in the geographical position most associated with them. You will find Seamus Heaney sat comfortably on top of Ireland, my fav Ginny Woolf nestled in the Sussex Downs and even Le Morte D'Arthur writer, Thomas Mallory, gets his place in England despite scholars for years thinking he was Welsh...
It's not just about birthplace, however. For instance, Bram Stoker appears making his way into the port at Whitby in North Yorkshire, a reference to the path of the ship that arrives in Stoker's infamous Gothic horror novel, Dracula.
The names on this map cover centuries of British writing, from one of Britain's first professional writers, Aprha Behn, and poet Christina Rossetti to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and Roald Dahl.
Perhaps the only disappointing aspect of this map is that there are, inevitably, always going to be authors left out. Nevertheless, I personally think this is brilliant... think I'll be buying a poster of it myself...
And so can you! At the marvelous Literary Gift Company website where I came across it: http://www.theliterarygiftcompany.com/literary-map-2678-p.asp
Interestingly some of these writers make it across the pond to feature in Geoff Sawers and Bridget Hannigan's literary map of the USA. American-born T.S. Eliot is seen fleeing America's east coast for Europe along with Henry James.
But what a road-trip that would be... land in the east-coast ports of Edith Wharton, Paul Auster and Arthur Miller, drive inland on the Louisa May Alcott highway, stop for tea with Harper Lee before heading west via Patricia Highsmith and Barbara Kingsolver before reaching the coastal towns of John Steinbeck and Vladimir Nabokov. Epic...
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