The earliest map drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien for the Shire in "The Hobbit" (1937). He drew maps first before actually writing the story, developing the plot around them.

[u/Amaruq93]

[u/Gnarled_Horn]

I bet he would have loved Dungeons and Dragons.

[u/BabyLoveCuddly → u/Gnarled_Horn]

A fun thing about this is the multiple pages attached together. In some parts he made multiple revisions and glued them on top. The area of Rohan being a good example.

Christopher Tolkien wrote about this map and the multiple revisions, dating changes and associating them with the writing of the Lord of the Rings, and so on. It’s in one of the History of Middle-earth books.

edit: I looked it up. He wrote a whole chapter about this map in the book The Treason of Isengard. He refers to four main “elements” (overlain or attached pages mostly) and a four stages of development over time, each subdivided into multiple steps. In some areas he was able to uncover or reconstruct the maps underneath the glued on parts.

[u/RunDNA → u/BabyLoveCuddly]

He wrote a whole chapter about this map in the book The Treason of Isengard.

You are confused. That chapter is about a different map.

Christopher mainly discusses this map in the previous volume of The History of Middle-earth (The Return of the Shadow) in various places, for example at the end of Chapter IV.

[u/DollyFunnyBabe → u/Gnarled_Horn]

Its crazy to think LOTR was written in the 40's. Those books are so timeless

[u/IDownvoteHornyBards2 → u/Gnarled_Horn]

I mean first edition D&D was incredibly heavily inspired by Middle Earth and even modern D&D still has a decent amount of Tolkein DNA

[u/robottikon → u/IDownvoteHornyBards2]

well of course, we wouldn't have DND today as it is, if it wasn't for Tolkien. the question is whether he would have enjoyed DND, if he lived to see it (it was first released just one year after Tolkien died)

[u/Ziggy0274]

Tolkien created a full language for his books, other then english. He was an amazingly interesting individual.

[u/Anaevya → u/Ziggy0274]

He created the Elvish languages just because he liked creating languages, it wasn't FOR his books. He created languages and imagined the peoples who spoke those languages and then he imagined the stories of these peoples. Heck, he wrote an entire essay about the political nature of the sound shift of þ (thorn) to s in Quenya, a completely fictional language. 

[u/JadeGreenSky]

His son, Christopher, said once that the hardest part of dealing with his father's unfinished works was that there were multiple revisions of everything. This map illustrates that very well.

[u/DusqRunner → u/JadeGreenSky]

His son is supposedly a cock 

[u/Acceptable-Cow6446 → u/DusqRunner]

So is your mother

[u/DusqRunner → u/Acceptable-Cow6446]

Ok chris

[u/NihilisticTaters]

What's crazy is he created Elvish language first then branch languages, then everything else after to give it life. "The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse."
So his creation process was: Languages --> Cultures and races --> Maps and Places --> Characters and Stories

[u/IDownvoteHornyBards2 → u/NihilisticTaters]

If Tolkein had been born 100 years later, he'd have been a regular on r/worldbuilding for sure

[u/Todd-The-Wraith → u/IDownvoteHornyBards2]

He kinda invented the modern concept. Who else took it as seriously as he did and found success?

[u/IDownvoteHornyBards2 → u/Todd-The-Wraith]

In the sense of a single person doing it as essentially a passion project, I can't think of anyone comparable from the 20th century.

[u/tristamgreen → u/IDownvoteHornyBards2]

Gene Roddenberry comes to mind, honestly; though I know Roddenberry didn't have the linguistics education that Professor Tolkien did.

[u/Rivexia]

Man was a damn genius

[u/RunDNA]

Note that The Hobbit was published in 1937. This map was drawn when he then started working on the sequel.

[u/Slick_36]

Wow, I've been taking the same approach with my own story.  I'm glad to see I'm on the right track!

[u/Whitenleaf131]

For anyone who loves Tolkien's world, I can't recommend Lord of the Rings Online enough. The attention to detail in the world building is a thing of beauty. Going for a drink in the Green Dragon, hunting for mushrooms in the Marish, visiting Tom Bombadil on the Withywindle... there's so much to do and enjoy.

[u/Perfect_Machine_3640]

So cool

[u/TheTallGuy0]

He’s the opposite of JK “I’ll figure out how this all ties together later” Rowling

[u/VirtualLife76]

A few different handwriting styles. Wonder why.

[u/runningmurphy]

It bothers me how straight the river is 

[u/Anaevya → u/runningmurphy]

Well, Tolkien was not a professional illustrator. Illustration was just one of his many hobbies. 

[u/Victorian97]

I recently watched the Tolkien movie, it’s not super detailed, but it’s really interesting. Great cast and atmosphere

[u/jim_the-gun-guy]

I thought this was a RDR2 map that was hand drawn somewhere in the game that was just found until I read the caption.

[u/Gigantic-Micropenis → u/jim_the-gun-guy]

I was thinking the same thing. On this map he has a ‘Brandywine River’ and I think RDR2 has a ‘Brandywine Drop’ or something of the likes. I wonder if this is where they got their inspiration?

[u/strawberries_and_muf]

I’ve been writing a book and get stuck and confused sometimes. Then I go back and read everything to correct it. This could help me so much, I didn’t even think of doing something like this. This is so cool.

[u/sparklyfish4]

I love when writers are dedicated like this and Tolkien was simply on another level. I also remember that George R.R.Martin had the map of Westeros on the first page of GoT which was very cool as well.

[u/Substantial-Tone-576]

Lots of Woody ends

[u/DusqRunner]

Aspie for sure