--> Moby-Dick; or, The Whale – Map <--
I thought this was a story about the sea — and of course it is — but it is just as much a story about land. It is a story about America, and at the same time a story about the whole world.
One of the reasons I draw literary maps is that they help me hold the novels together; I often find that the texts come alive through the overview the maps provide. With Moby-Dick this was especially true, and I also wanted to include many of Melville’s descriptions of the ship and the whale.
When I read Chapter 44 (which is about maps!) I decided to base my work on some of the wonderful wind and ocean-current charts that Melville mentions and that began to be developed during this period. See below.
The map shows many places. I had a list of more than three hundred names that I wanted to include, but despite that I think the readability turned out well. It is a map of “true places” that invites further reading.
The physical geography of the sea. By Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 1806-1873
“Courtesy of The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology”