Boing Boing reports on one of the recent acquisition the
Bodleian libraries of Oxford, a map of Middle Earth annotated by the author himself.

Tolkien was a little wary of inviting illustrators into the world of
Hobbits, Orcs and Man, wanting to ensure that his vision remained true and imagination unprivileged by an inaccurate depiction, and used this map as a working-version of a poster commissioned to show the lay of the land. Notes reveal that places in Middle Earth have real world correspondence, with Hobbiton having the same latitude as the storied university town and further insights into the creative process.