Chartmaker's Tale

Overview and Issue

Three Part Article
It is not a surprise that when it came to choosing an expert to produce maps for certain of her novels, DD chose Peter McClure. The author brings to life his background with fascinating relatives who fed his lifelong fascination and skills in map-making.
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WG048 - Pt 1
The power of particular family members and the books that surrounded him as a child inspired Peter to fall in love with map-making. His maternal grandmother's fascinating background in India and her memorabilia cemented his decision to pursue map-making as a career. In particular, he takes pride in the amount of manual work each map entails - "...all my work is produced by hand without the aid of electronics or computers. No typesetting is employed-all the lettering is hand-drawn and I sometimes make my own ink and pens. I do use modem instruments manufactured by Haff but also others which date from early this century." (PM)

WG049 - Pt 2
"About one week ago, I delivered the artwork for TLWL and you will have seen the vast geographical canvas that the story covers and the sea monsters that lurk within its bounds". A fascinating insight by the author is that early maps had sea monsters as a device to keep rivals at bay! He also acknowledges the breadth of skills he learned from his time in the navy: spherical trigonometry, charts and topography, painting, history and geography.

He also reveals the complexity faced by map-makers of constantly changing borders, landmarks, rivers etc.

WG050 - Pt 3
Peter gives us fascinating details on the trials and tribulations of designing the maps required for TLWL (including directions from DD that the maps must not reveal important plot points!): "The layout of the maps for TLWL posed some tricky problems. With a storyline running from the Arctic Circle to the Levant, taking in Cyprus and with a lot of action in France, central Europe and the Netherlands, I was very pleased to be able to have endpaper maps front and back. Scotland played a hefty part as well, but as there was map to cover this in UH I was able to put in just a few relevant features on the North Sea/Norwegian Sea map. Also, DD did not want to disclose the plot situation so southwest Iceland had to be tucked away under the back flap of the jacket in the hope that no one would notice it until later - just like Nicholas with his secret messages."

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Dorothy Simpson; Carol Drinkwater; Sarah Woodhouse; Joseph Conrad; Giuseppe di Lampedusa; Sterling Hayden.

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Nicholas Monsarrat, Commander Mark Higman R.N, Edwin Harper. Ann Carter, Mary Griffiths of Cassell and Co; the artist and teacher Norman Jenkinson, and Paul Drury, Julia Ashby of Macmillan and more recently, Jenny Davies, Richenda Todd, Anne Askwith and Alexander Stilwell of Michael Joseph, and Douglas Cooksey and Barbara Goldsmid of the BBC. Richard Condon, Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, PerezGaldos and Patricia Highsmith and especially Hemingway and Wodehouse, W.W. Jacobs.

WG048: India
WG049: None
WG050: Favourite locations: Barcelona, Malaga and the mountain regions of Andalucia, Beirut (in days past) and most of all, the island of Guernsey.

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Dorothy Simpson: Suspicious Death.
The Imperial Atlas and Survey of India
Maps in Lett's Literature Guide for Lord of the Flies, an additional island in the Fiji group for An Abundance of Rain by Carol Drinkwater and Bretton Hall and its surroundings in Sarah Woodhouse's Enchanted Ground.
Murray's 'Travellers' Guides'.
Favourite novels: Nastromo by Joseph Conrad, Victor Hugo's The Toilers and the Sea; The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa and Voyage by Sterling Hayden.

WG050 - The sea-battle off Iquique, which took place on 21st May 1879 during the war between Chile and Peru.