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"Hidden" Atlas

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Map of the Land of Oz

This map was created for the 1914 edition of L. Frank Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz. This initial depiction of "the Marvelous Land of Oz" situates the world as surrounded by an impassable barrier of desert wastes. In doing so, it anticipates a reader's skepticism about the world's existence and provides a plausible excuse for the suspension of that disbelief. Tourists to Oz are few and far between due to the deserts- therefore it's conceivable that the rest of the world has not yet heard of it.

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Map of the Island of Sodor

The Island of Sodor is a fictional setting created by Reverend W. Audry, author of The Railway Series of books which were later adapted into the children's television show Thomas and Friends. Very concerned with the world's believability, Audry and his brother George published maps and extensive descriptions of the island in a 1987 book entitled The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways. The exactitude of the railway lines, which are the major feature of this map, is remarkable and reflective of the preoccupation with accuracy of detail in the stories.

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Map of Brobdingnag

Brobdingnag is the second destination of Lemuel Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. It is supposedly inhabited by giants. The books were written as satire of contemporary society and a parody of then-popular travel literature. Scholars have pointed out that the impossible dimensions of the island as described in the story were an ironic reference to other contemporaneous books. In contrast to the other maps in this exhibit, the purpose of the map of Brobdingnag was not to convince a reader of the credibility of the location, but rather the opposite, as a mockery of dramatized travel stories.

"Hidden" Atlas