the phantom atlas

The Phantom Atlas is a guide to the world not as it is, but as it was imagined to be. It’s a world of ghost islands, invisible mountain ranges, mythical civilizations, ship-wrecking beasts, and other fictitious features introduced on maps and atlases through mistakes, misunderstanding, fantasies, and outright lies. This richly illustrated book collects and explores the colorful histories behind a striking range of real antique maps that are all in some way a little too good to be true. Author Edward Brooke-Hitching investigates the places where exploration and mythology meet, using gorgeous atlas images as springboards for tales of the deranged buccaneers, seafaring monks, heroes, swindlers, and other amazing stories behind cartography’s greatest phantoms.