<story><title>Tolkien&apos;s annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/23/jrr-tolkien-middle-earth-annotated-map-blackwells-lord-of-the-rings</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jfaucett</author><text>&amp;quot;It shows what Blackwell’s called “the exacting nature” of Tolkien’s creative vision: he corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map’s various flora and fauna.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ve got to respect the man for his attention to detail. To the outsider it might seem as if it were near insanity levels (fully creating multiple language families for instance &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Languages_constructed_by_J._R._R._Tolkien&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Languages_constructed_by_J._R....&lt;/a&gt;). But you feel the histories and mythology behind the languages in the works. There&amp;#x27;s just an amazing vitality and realism in his universe that I&amp;#x27;ve personally never felt in another work of fantasy as good as those other books might be.&lt;p&gt;I read a biography about him many years ago, and if I remember correctly he wrote the stories for the languages not the other way around, since he discovered that his languages needed a mythology and history in order to be realistic.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tolkien&apos;s annotated map of Middle-earth discovered in copy of Lord of the Rings</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/23/jrr-tolkien-middle-earth-annotated-map-blackwells-lord-of-the-rings</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nathancahill</author><text>A high resolution stitched map: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;lWAFuHe.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;lWAFuHe.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Made with pictures from here: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.citylab.com&amp;#x2F;design&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;a-map-of-middle-earth-annotated-by-jrr-tolkien&amp;#x2F;412105&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.citylab.com&amp;#x2F;design&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;a-map-of-middle-earth-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>