#literary maps

I love to travel, but I have pesky things like a day job and a budget that keep me at home most of the year. I think that’s one reason (of many, of course) that I love to read—the chance to “visit” new places. Thanks to books, I’ve been to rural Russia, the Scottish highlands, bustling cities in Nigeria, and a rural New Zealand whaling village. Sometimes, I’ll look up the book’s setting in a map app and use street view to wander through streets or check out a particular building. I’ve even created my own literary maps before for grad school projects or just for fun. Books + maps = one happy literary tourist.

Do you know someone with a similar addiction to maps and books? (Maybe it’s you.) Are their walls looking a little bare? Here are some of the best literary maps I’ve found on Etsy.

Smiley's London

Set to make a long-awaited reappearance next month, George Smiley is John le Carré's most enduring character. In preparation for the event, Penguin Books has released a map of London annotated with locations key to his many appearances within le Carré's novels. Below you'll find a key to the map, click here to read about persons and/or events tied to those locations marked; or, you may download the map in PDF format here. A Legacy of Spies hits bookstore shelves on 5 September.

The Circus, British Intelligence Services HQ

No. 9 Bywater Street, Chelsea

Battersea Bridge (North end)

Unipress Building, Fleet Street

Alec Leamas's Flat, Bayswater

British Military Intelligence Agency, Blackfriars Road

Islay Hotel, Sussex Gardens

No. 5 Lock Gardens, Camden Town

Foreign Office Conference House, Carlton Gardens

Hampstead Heath

Paddington Station

Câmara Municipal de Leiria, Rota dos Escritores / Writer’s tour, Leiria, Portugal, 2017

A Seventh Collection of Literary Maps

The Dreamlands, from the Dream Cycle stories of H.P. Lovecraft

Zothique, from the stories of Clark Ashton Smith

Hyperborea, from the stories of Clark Ashton Smith

The Travels of Ulysses, from The Iliad & The Odyssey, Homer

The Travels of Stephen Daedalus and Leopold Bloom, 16 June 1904; from Ulysses, James Joyce

Angria, from Tales of Angria, Charlotte & Branwell Brontë

Erewhon, from Erewhon, Samuel Butler