{"id":1835888,"date":"2025-01-13T21:24:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T02:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1835888"},"modified":"2025-01-13T21:26:28","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T02:26:28","slug":"karen-wynn-fonstads-belated-nyt-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/01\/karen-wynn-fonstads-belated-nyt-obituary\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Wynn Fonstad\u2019s Belated NYT Obituary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Karen Wynn Fonstad, the cartographer of fantasy worlds best known for her Atlas of Middle-earth<\/a><\/em>, died in March 2005<\/a> aged 59. Nearly twenty years later, she gets a comprehensive obituary in the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, replete with lots of examples of her mapmaking, as part of its Overlooked series, which gives belated obituaries to \u201cremarkable people whose deaths […] went unreported in The Times<\/em>.\u201d Paywalled; workarounds via the usual suspects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karen Wynn Fonstad, the cartographer of fantasy worlds best known for her Atlas of Middle-earth, died in March 2005 aged 59. Nearly twenty years later, she gets a comprehensive obituary in the New York Times,… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,581],"tags":[31,486,140,397],"class_list":["post-1835888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-imaginary-maps","category-obituaries","tag-fantasy-maps","tag-middle-earth","tag-new-york-times","tag-tolkien","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1839438,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/04\/preserving-the-maps-of-karen-wynn-fonstad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1835888,"position":0},"title":"Preserving the Maps of Karen Wynn Fonstad","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 April 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"Wisconsin Public Radio takes up the story of fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad (1945\u20132005), best known for her Atlas of Middle Earth and other fantasy-world atlases. \u201cFonstad\u00a0passed away 20 years ago. Now, her husband and her son\u2014both geographers themselves\u2014have embarked on a new quest: to digitize her original maps and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5773,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/04\/the-geology-of-game-of-thrones\/","url_meta":{"origin":1835888,"position":1},"title":"The Geology of ‘Game of Thrones’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"9 April 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"In The Geology of Game of Thrones, a group of geologists has created a geologic map of Westeros and Essos, as well as an invented geologic history of the planet on which George R.\u00a0R. Martin's epic takes place. Via io9. This isn't the first time a fantasy world has been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geology"","block_context":{"text":"Geology","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1835155,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/11\/alice-hudson-1947-2024\/","url_meta":{"origin":1835888,"position":2},"title":"Alice Hudson, 1947-2024","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"30 November 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"Alice Hudson, who from 1981 to 2009 was chief of the New York Public Library\u2019s Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, and as such responsible for one of the world\u2019s significant map collections, died on 6 November 2024 from complications of kidney disease. She was 77. The New York\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Obituaries"","block_context":{"text":"Obituaries","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/obituaries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4020,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/03\/rodney-w-shirley\/","url_meta":{"origin":1835888,"position":3},"title":"Rodney W. Shirley","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 March 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"According to a Facebook post by the Washington Map Society's Bert Johnson,\u00a0Rodney W. Shirley, the author of several\u00a0books of cartographic antiquarian research, including\u00a0The Mapping of the World,\u00a0Courtiers and Cannibals, Angels and Amazons, and other titles on early printed maps, died last Saturday. I\u00a0have not been able to find an obituary\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1835907,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/01\/bob-wegner-1941-2025\/","url_meta":{"origin":1835888,"position":4},"title":"Bob Wegner, 1941-2025","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"14 January 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"Bob Wegner, an illustrator who spent 42 years drawing railroad maps and model train track plans for the Kalmbach line of magazines\u2014Trains, Model Railroader and Classic Trains\u2014died last week at the age of 83. Classic Trains has a rememberance; obituary here.","rel":"","context":"In "Obituaries"","block_context":{"text":"Obituaries","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/obituaries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1788209,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/01\/christopher-tolkien-1924-2020\/","url_meta":{"origin":1835888,"position":5},"title":"Christopher Tolkien, 1924-2020","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 January 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"Christopher Tolkien, the third son of J. R. R. Tolkien and the executor of his literary estate and editor of his posthumous works, died yesterday at the age of 95. But one of his legacies is likely to be overlooked: he drew the map of Middle-earth that appeared in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/cjrt-middle-earth-1954-1024x570.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/cjrt-middle-earth-1954-1024x570.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/cjrt-middle-earth-1954-1024x570.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/cjrt-middle-earth-1954-1024x570.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1835888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1835891,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835888\/revisions\/1835891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1835888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1835888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1835888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}