{"id":1839438,"date":"2025-04-12T19:04:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T23:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1839438"},"modified":"2025-04-12T19:04:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T23:04:50","slug":"preserving-the-maps-of-karen-wynn-fonstad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/04\/preserving-the-maps-of-karen-wynn-fonstad\/","title":{"rendered":"Preserving the Maps of Karen Wynn Fonstad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wisconsin Public Radio takes up the story<\/a> of fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad (1945\u20132005), best known for her Atlas of Middle Earth<\/em> 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 find an archive to house them.\u201d Her son spent his spring break week getting as many of her maps as possible scanned at the Robinson Map Library<\/a>, a task he described as barely scratching the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This follows her belated obituary in the New York Times<\/em><\/a> earlier this year (previously<\/a>): she may be, finally, having a posthumous moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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… 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":[4],"tags":[31,1326],"class_list":["post-1839438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-maps-and-literature","tag-fantasy-maps","tag-map-preservation","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1835888,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/01\/karen-wynn-fonstads-belated-nyt-obituary\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839438,"position":0},"title":"Karen Wynn Fonstad\u2019s Belated NYT Obituary","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 January 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"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, replete with lots of examples of her mapmaking, as part of its Overlooked series, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/imaginary-maps\/"},"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":1839438,"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":5940,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/10\/fantasy-maps-of-us-cities\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839438,"position":2},"title":"Fantasy Maps of U.S. Cities","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"2 October 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"For another example of using fantasy map design language to create real-world maps, here's the work of geography professor Stentor Danielson, who draws maps of U.S. cities in the style of fantasy maps and sells them on Etsy. Boston, Cleveland (above), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington are available. His Tumblr. Via\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fantasy map of Cleveland (Stentor Danielson)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jonathancrowe.net\/images\/2014\/mapsburgh-cleveland.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jonathancrowe.net\/images\/2014\/mapsburgh-cleveland.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jonathancrowe.net\/images\/2014\/mapsburgh-cleveland.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5582,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/06\/the-sixteenth-century-origins-of-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839438,"position":3},"title":"The Sixteenth-Century Origins of Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 June 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the things I'm interested in for my fantasy maps project is the origin of fantasy map design: where does that tell-tale fantasy map look come from? Look at enough fantasy maps, and it's hard not to notice certain commonalities in design. As Stefan Ekman demonstrates in Here Be\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":2279,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/06\/fantasy-maps-middle-earth-vs-westeros\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839438,"position":4},"title":"Fantasy Maps: Middle-earth vs. Westeros","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 June 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"In the latest instalment of Hannah Stahl's series of posts on fantasy maps at the Library of Congress's map blog (see previous entry), she takes as a starting point my argument that Tolkien's map of Middle-earth is the\u00a0progenitor map from which the modern fantasy map design is descended, and compares\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":208,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/01\/book-riot-on-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839438,"position":5},"title":"Book Riot on Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 January 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"This\u00a0Book Riot piece on fantasy maps from last September touches on a number of subjects I can never get enough information on:\u00a0the editorial decision on whether to include a map, how\u00a0one becomes a fantasy map maker, what information\u00a0from the author does the map maker have to work with, how 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":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839438","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=1839438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1839441,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839438\/revisions\/1839441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}