Landmarks: Maps as Literary Illustration
Houghton Library, Edison and Newman Room
Jan 16 – April 14, 2018
Full:
Maps enjoy a long tradition as a mode of literary illustration, orienting readers to worlds real and imagined. Presented in conjunction with the bicentenary of the Harvard Map Collection, this exhibition brings together over sixty landmark literary maps, from the 200-mile-wide island in Thomas More’s Utopia to the supercontinent called the Stillness in N. K. Jemisin’s 'The Fifth Season'. Visitors will traverse literary geographies from William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County to Nuruddin Farah’s besieged Somalia; or perhaps escape the world’s bothers in Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood. At this intersection of literature and cartography, get your bearings and let these maps guide your way.
Brief:
Discover over sixty landmark literary maps that have oriented readers for centuries, bringing to life imagined places from Thomas More’s Utopian island to the Stillness supercontinent in N. K. Jemisin’s award-winning science fantasy 'The Fifth Season'.
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Landmarks: Maps as Literary Illustration
Curatorial Talks
Discover over sixty landmark literary maps that have oriented readers for centuries, bringing to life imagined places from Thomas More’s Utopian island to the Stillness supercontinent in N. K. Jemisin’s award-winning science fantasy The Fifth Season.
Join exhibition curator Peter X. Accardo, Houghton Library, and David Weimer, Librarian for Cartographic Collections and Learning at the Harvard Map Collection, for lunchtime and evening tours of the exhibition.
Houghton Library, Edison and Newman Room
Wednesday, February 14, 12:30-1:15pm
Thursday, March 8, 5:30-6:15pm
Thursday, March 22, 5:30-6:15pm
Wednesday, March 28, 12:30-1:15pm