Mapping Victorian Adventure Fiction: Silences, Doublings, and the Ur-Map in <em>Treasure Island</em> and <em>King Solomon's Mines</em>

Abstract

While there has been much critical interest in the relationship between visual and verbal forms in the Victorian period, there has been no real attempt to develop ways of exploring and interpreting the relationship between maps and texts. This paper begins to address such a lack by theorizing the dynamic between map and text for the map in adventure fiction. Two iconic maps (those for Treasure Island and King Solomon's Mines) are analyzed in an interdisciplinary way by drawing upon the discipline of cartography, particularly critical cartography. Three cartographic concepts are explored in relation to the literary examples: the accuracy of the map; the concept of cartographic silence; and the authenticity of the map.