In 2014 I was commissioned to make fourteen maps for An Atlas of Tolkien, which was then published in October 2015. The maps were to cover all of Arda, from the beginning of time within Tolkien’s legendarium, to the start of the Fourth Age at the end of The Return of the King. In the end the author and I were very pleased with these maps, and all was good to go – but at the very last moment all of the images but one were pulled from the book. The author was no less disappointed than I was.
I kept them all secret for a long time, but I think now it’s best to put them up here as nothing more than fan artwork. And I hope they give pleasure to whoever comes across them.
List of maps:
The Spring of Arda 1 (Years of the Lamps)
The Spring of Arda 2 (Years of the Trees)
Middle Earth in the Age of Stars
Valinor in the Years of the Trees
Beleriand and the North in First Years of the Sun
Numenor
The Empire of Numenor Under Ar-Pharazôn
Middle Earth in the Third Age
The Shire
The Quest of Erebor (as told in The Hobbit)
The Fellowship of the Ring, showing the paths of the protagonists
The Two Towers, showing the paths of the protagonists
The Return of the King, showing the paths of the protagonists
Middle Earth at the Start of the Fourth Age
My sources were the original texts, JRR and Christopher Tolkien’s original maps, JRR’s sketches in the Ambarkanta, and Karen Wynn Fonstad’s Atlas of Middle Earth.
Higher resolution images available on request.
