The Hobbit, published in 1937 and written by JRR Tolkien, is one of the most acclaimed children's books of all time. It was the basis for the later Lord of the Rings series, and its world of Middle-Earth was born here. In this video, we'll look at the beautiful and incredibly immersive storytelling maps that Tolkien made for the Hobbit, and review how they were made and what makes them so worth loving.
Without a doubt, Tolkien's later maps from The Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King get way more attention. I explore those in an earlier video that you can find here ( • Tolkien's Incredible M... ). However, these maps in the Hobbit are a great glimpse into Tolkien's early creative process, the importance of cartography and maps when he wrote and imagined the world of Middle Earth, and his love of geography and worldbuilding.
Bilbo's journeys with the dwarves carried him across this land, only partially mapped, with so many mysteries left unopened. We are drawn across Mirkwood and the land of Smaug and the great Lonely Mountain. And, in fact, without Thror's Map, we would never have a Hobbit story at all.
My goal with this series is to explore the amazing maps that humanity has created over the span of human history, and to use these as ways to connect with our ancestors. I hope you enjoy going on this journey with me, and please let me know if you like this format and if you want to see more videos.
A huge thanks to everyone that helped to contribute to this video and whose works are featured here, including:
Images and Art
Ralph Damiani (www.artstation.com/ralphdamiani)
Rodrigo Garbini ( / enanoakd )
Jonathan Guzi (jonathanguzi.com/)
Daniel Govar (www.danielgovar.com/)
And of course the Tolkiens and others.
Audio
- Adventures of a Wanderer Lord of the Rings RPG Music Royalty Free: • Adventures of a Wander...
- Medieval Song Village Consort [No Copyright Music]: • Medieval Song Village ...
- Folk Round by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/..., Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-..., Artist: incompetech.com/
Research
Correspondence with Jonas Mertens
The Annotated Hobbit, Douglas Anderson
JRR Tolkien Encyclopedia, Michael Drout
Atlas of Middle Earth, Karen Wynn Fonstad
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geograp..., en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atl..., en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit)
And many more.
A nod to Great Art Explained ( / @greatartexplained ) for helping me come up with the idea for this series.
And of course, thanks to all the many hands along the course of history that created and shared such works, so we can all learn more from the past.
Love,
Victor
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All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
#tolkien #map #hobbit #lotr #cartography #fantasy