Read this: A long-unexpected obituary for Middle-earth’s mapmaker

Reading and studying Lord Of The Rings is one thing. Mapping it is another. Thankfully, someone did it and made the geographical wanderings of the Fellowship of the Ring a little easier to follow. That person was Karen Wynn Fonstad, and in 1977, this part-time cartographer and Lord Of The Rings obsessive made a cold call to J.R.R. Tolkien’s publisher. She wanted to do an extensive atlas of Middle-earth, the fantasy prehistoric Earth that hobbits and Elves traversed in The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings. Two-and-a-half years later, The Atlas Of Middle-earth was published, and the genre changed forever.

Fonstad’s story appeared today in The New York Times’ ongoing “Overlooked No More,” a regular column, adding obituaries of noteworthy people that The Times missed over its 175-year history. Now in its 32nd printing, Fonstad’s Atlas Of Middle-earth featured 182 hand-drawn maps and included diagrams of linguistic evolution and tables outlining the lengths of rivers and mountain ranges. “It’s a true atlas (the author is a geographer) and quite an achievement,” wrote critic Baird Searles in a book review. But that was just the beginning. Aside from select maps making their way into revised editions of Christopher Tolkien’s revised The History Of Middle-earth, Fonstad also crafted maps for Dungeons & Dragons. Her The Forgotten Realms Atlas helped bring some reality to the fantasy tabletop game and its various spin-offs and tie-ins. She wasn’t imprisoned by the outdoors, either. With Dungeons & Dragons, Fonstad also mapped the interiors of castles, keeps, and inns. Her work inspired others to take mapping these fantasy worlds seriously, making cartography an essential part of any fantasy world worth its weight in lembas bread. Fonstad died of breast cancer on March 11, 2005, at the age of 59.

Read the full “Overlooked No More” obituary at The New York Times.