Reposted by Marquette University Raynor Library
The archivist in charge of 11,000 pages of original Lord of the Rings drafts at Marquette University 📜
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tmj4.com
The archivist in charge of 11,000 pages of original Lord of the Rings drafts at Marquette University
The journey to Middle-earth and understanding J. R. R. Tolkien begins inside Marquette University's archives, which has more than 11,000 pages of drafts for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
![Pictured is an annotated version of a fold-out map which was included in early editions of the Lord of The Rings. The map shows readers Tolkien’s fantasy world ‘Middle-earth’.
The annotations are by Tolkien himself, and were for the benefit of Pauline Baynes, an artist who was creating an illustrated poster map of Middle-earth.
Baynes ripped the map out of her own 1954 copy of Lord of the Rings and took it to Tolkien, who covered it with notes, including many extra place names that do not appear in the book. Since most were in his own invented Elvish language he helpfully translated some: ‘Eryn Vorn [= Black Forest] a forest region of dark [pine?] trees.’
The annotations give an insight into how vividly Tolkien pictured Middle-earth in his mind, and how thorough his research was. They include a series of geographical pointers about the latitude of key locations: ‘Hobbiton is assumed to be approx. at latitude of Oxford,’. ‘Minas Tirith is about latitude of Ravenna (but is 900 miles east of Hobbiton more near Belgrade). Bottom of the map (1,400 miles) is about latitude of Jerusalem.’
Pictured: MS. Tolkien Drawings 132. copyright Tolkien Estate / Williams College Oxford Programme 2018](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:blxilps4iwbxicionf2rztej/bafkreihyhpyp5dimgthg2hvn4esb7fiyz4q425ceduhvhqpvyr45iz7bry)
