------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Literary descriptions of cartomania?
Date:   Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:35:09 -0800
From:   Ken-Jennings.com <[log in to unmask]>
To:     [log in to unmask]



Hi, my name's Ken Jennings.  I'm an author working on a book, to be
published next year by Scriber's, about map and geography enthusiasts
of all kinds.  (I'm also the guy who was on the TV quiz show
"Jeopardy" for much of 2004, if that rings a bell.)  The archives of
this mailing list have been a great resource for me as I research the
book, and I finally got around to subscribing a couple weeks ago.

Here's my question, which isn't strictly related to map librarianship,
but which I thought maybe somebody here could help with.  The books on
cartography I read all tend to use the same few excerpts over and
over: Robert Louis Stevenson writing about maps and how they informed
Treasure Island, for example.  Or the bit from Heart of Darkness about
how Marlow was always fascinated, as a boy, with the "blank spaces" on
the map.  So I'm looking for compelling (and fresher!) descriptions of
people's personal love of maps.

In my research, I've come across a few less familiar accounts that
I've really enjoyed.  This Gelett Burgess essay is very funny, for
example:
http://bit.ly/au9pba
And John Ruskin was a map geek as well:
http://bit.ly/acVckU
I've also unearthed a few great novels about map lovers, like Clark
Blaise's Lunar Attractions or Geoff Nicholson's Bleeding London.

Do any of you have favorite passages about cartophilia, whether from
fiction or non-?  On a related note, are there other famous names,
past or present, who are on the record as map buffs?

Thanks in advance,
Ken
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