What is the most famous map in English literature: the pirate map in Peter Pan? How about Tolkein’s map of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings, a highlight of the forthcoming exhibition on the author in Oxford? I’ve always loved EH Shepard’s map of the River, the Wild Wood and Toad Hall in Wind in The Willows. Apparently, though, it is Shepard’s other masterpiece, the map of Hundred Acre Wood in Winnie-the-Pooh, which crowns them all.
The market is about to test this theory as the original 1926 sketch comes up for auction in early July with an estimate that stretches to £150,000. That may sound a lot until you consider that an original Shepard drawing depicting Pooh and his friends playing Pooh sticks sold for £314,500 four years ago – a record for any book illustration sold at auction.
These entrancing pictorial maps are a delight to any child – and adult come to that – even more so now than in times past when you look at the price the Hundred Acre Wood map achieved when it first came to auction exactly 50 years ago: £650. Even with inflation, that would come nowhere near the £150,000 mooted now.
You can feast your eyes on more pictorial maps at the unique London Map Fair this weekend near the Albert Hall, where the event is making a special feature of them.
