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The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes
Gathered in this book are two dozen islands once believed to be real but no longer on the map. These are the products of imagination, deception and simple human error. They are phantoms and fakes: an archipelago of ex-isles and forgotten lands.
From the well-known story of Atlantis to more obscure tales from around the globe; from ancient history right up to the present day. This is an atlas of legend and wonder, of places discovered and then un-discovered.
Malachy's words will be accompanied in the book by glorious full-colour illustrations by Katie Scott, who has previously worked with the New York Times, Kew Gardens and the BBC. She is the illustrator of the beautiful Animalium and the forthcoming Botanicum.
From the well-known story of Atlantis to more obscure tales from around the globe; from ancient history right up to the present day. This is an atlas of legend and wonder, of places discovered and then un-discovered.
Malachy's words will be accompanied in the book by glorious full-colour illustrations by Katie Scott, who has previously worked with the New York Times, Kew Gardens and the BBC. She is the illustrator of the beautiful Animalium and the forthcoming Botanicum.
143 pages, Hardcover
First published October 13, 2016
34 people are currently reading
1445 people want to read
About the author
Malachy Tallack
12 books120 followersMalachy Tallack has written three works of non-fiction – Sixty Degrees North, The Un-Discovered Islands and Illuminated by Water – and two novels, The Valley at the Centre of the World and That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz. He won a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2014, and the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015. As a singer-songwriter he has released five albums and an EP, and performed in venues across the UK. He is from Shetland, and currently lives in Fife.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
January 17, 2018
Map says it's there; where did it go?
There are several sections to this book breaking down the islands into categories: Islands of Life and Death (mythic representations of eden/heaven), Setting Out, The Age of Exploration--before we solved the problem of an accurate timepiece accurate longitude measurements were impossible and historical maps are littered with islands that have never been seen again. In 1875, the British Royal Navy removed 123 islands from its admiralty maps after an extensive remapping endeavor. Sunken Lands addresses the obvious, lands that were reclaimed by the ocean from real ones off Iceland and Greenland to the fictional Atlantis created by Plato which amazingly transcended its purpose. Fraudulent Islands were great and made me smile. A whole slew of imaginary islands named after investors or rich men that explorers were hoping would funds future ventures. But I guess the most surprising section was Recent Undiscoveries. You'd think with all the technology we have that there wouldn't be any left to disprove-au contraire. I somehow managed to miss the post Y2K brouhaha between Mexico and the US over the mysterious island Bermeja in the Gulf of Mexico and the implications in treaties and oil drilling.
This isn't as in-depth as I hoped, but realistically, the lack of material is what made these islands exist for so long. Tallack did a good job either outright debunking the island or presenting enough circumstantial information to create a reasonable cogent argument for what might have been responsible for its inclusion on maps. A fun reference for the curious and filled with some nice illustrations throughout, reflective of those presented on the cover.
There are several sections to this book breaking down the islands into categories: Islands of Life and Death (mythic representations of eden/heaven), Setting Out, The Age of Exploration--before we solved the problem of an accurate timepiece accurate longitude measurements were impossible and historical maps are littered with islands that have never been seen again. In 1875, the British Royal Navy removed 123 islands from its admiralty maps after an extensive remapping endeavor. Sunken Lands addresses the obvious, lands that were reclaimed by the ocean from real ones off Iceland and Greenland to the fictional Atlantis created by Plato which amazingly transcended its purpose. Fraudulent Islands were great and made me smile. A whole slew of imaginary islands named after investors or rich men that explorers were hoping would funds future ventures. But I guess the most surprising section was Recent Undiscoveries. You'd think with all the technology we have that there wouldn't be any left to disprove-au contraire. I somehow managed to miss the post Y2K brouhaha between Mexico and the US over the mysterious island Bermeja in the Gulf of Mexico and the implications in treaties and oil drilling.
This isn't as in-depth as I hoped, but realistically, the lack of material is what made these islands exist for so long. Tallack did a good job either outright debunking the island or presenting enough circumstantial information to create a reasonable cogent argument for what might have been responsible for its inclusion on maps. A fun reference for the curious and filled with some nice illustrations throughout, reflective of those presented on the cover.
November 14, 2016
(3.5) Last summer I very much enjoyed Malachy Tallack’s first book, 60 Degrees North, a memoir cum travel book about looking for a place to call home in the midst of a nomadic life. His new book is a gorgeous art object (illustrated by Katie Scott), composed of two- or three-page mini-essays about the real and legendary islands that have disappeared and/or been disproved over the centuries. A few of the names may be familiar – Atlantis, Thule and the Isles of the Blessed, perhaps – but many of the rest are fairly obscure entries in the historical and geographical record.
It’s fascinating to see how some of these islands inhabit both mythological and real space. For instance, my favorite story is that of Hufaidh in the Southern Iraq marshes. This area where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers meet was the ancestral home of the Ma‘dān or “Marsh Arabs,” and was known to Western visitors such as Gavin Maxwell, who came to collect his otter Mijbil (the subject of Ring of Bright Water) there, and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger. Tallack writes that Hufaidh “was part paradise and part hell, both of this world and another.” When Thesiger asked locals about the island in the 1950s, he was told that “anyone who sees Hufaidh is bewitched, and afterwards no-one can understand his words.” So Hufaidh was mythical? In a sense, Tallack acknowledges, and yet Saddam Hussein’s deliberate destruction of the marshes after the first Gulf War also obliterated Hufaidh, and even the ongoing campaign of ecological restoration can never bring it back.
I was also intrigued by the tale of the Auroras, presumed to be located between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. They were sighted multiple times between 1762 and 1796, including by a Spanish research ship, but were never seen again after the eighteenth century. Were the sailors simply mistaken? In 1820 Captain James Weddell concluded that they must have confused the Shag Rocks, 100 miles to the east, for a new set of islands. But the mystery remained, as evidenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which has a ship’s crew searching for the Auroras as well as for fur seals.
Plato almost certainly invented Atlantis for his allegories, but in reading this book you will learn that some islands are indeed suspected to have sunk, like Sarah Ann Island in the Pacific, which the USA claimed for its guano resources. And while you might think that bogus territories could not exist in the late twentieth or early twenty-first centuries, a few did: the Terra Nova Islands of the Antarctic were only removed from the map in 1989, and Bermeja, an island in the Gulf of Mexico disputed between the United States and Mexico, was only definitively proven not to exist in 2009.
A few of these cases feel thin or repetitive; even with 24 islands discussed in full and another 10 listed with capsule explanations in an appendix, you sometimes get the sense that the book required a lot of barrel-scraping to craft satisfying narratives out of frustratingly incomplete stories. Still, Tallack has done an admirable job parsing fact from fiction and extracting broad lessons about the truths that might lie deeper than our atlas pages:
With its excellent color illustrations, this would make a perfect coffee table book to dip into whenever you have five or ten spare minutes to read an essay or two. I would particularly recommend it to readers who are captivated by maps, historical oddities and hoaxes.
My thanks to Kristian Kerr of Birlinn Polygon for the free copy.
Originally published with images on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Further reading: Two similar books I’ve read are The Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna (about the search for Thule) and Banvard’s Folly by Paul Collins (more tangentially relevant – it’s about historical mistakes and failures). You might also try Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands.
It’s fascinating to see how some of these islands inhabit both mythological and real space. For instance, my favorite story is that of Hufaidh in the Southern Iraq marshes. This area where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers meet was the ancestral home of the Ma‘dān or “Marsh Arabs,” and was known to Western visitors such as Gavin Maxwell, who came to collect his otter Mijbil (the subject of Ring of Bright Water) there, and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger. Tallack writes that Hufaidh “was part paradise and part hell, both of this world and another.” When Thesiger asked locals about the island in the 1950s, he was told that “anyone who sees Hufaidh is bewitched, and afterwards no-one can understand his words.” So Hufaidh was mythical? In a sense, Tallack acknowledges, and yet Saddam Hussein’s deliberate destruction of the marshes after the first Gulf War also obliterated Hufaidh, and even the ongoing campaign of ecological restoration can never bring it back.
I was also intrigued by the tale of the Auroras, presumed to be located between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. They were sighted multiple times between 1762 and 1796, including by a Spanish research ship, but were never seen again after the eighteenth century. Were the sailors simply mistaken? In 1820 Captain James Weddell concluded that they must have confused the Shag Rocks, 100 miles to the east, for a new set of islands. But the mystery remained, as evidenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which has a ship’s crew searching for the Auroras as well as for fur seals.
Plato almost certainly invented Atlantis for his allegories, but in reading this book you will learn that some islands are indeed suspected to have sunk, like Sarah Ann Island in the Pacific, which the USA claimed for its guano resources. And while you might think that bogus territories could not exist in the late twentieth or early twenty-first centuries, a few did: the Terra Nova Islands of the Antarctic were only removed from the map in 1989, and Bermeja, an island in the Gulf of Mexico disputed between the United States and Mexico, was only definitively proven not to exist in 2009.
A few of these cases feel thin or repetitive; even with 24 islands discussed in full and another 10 listed with capsule explanations in an appendix, you sometimes get the sense that the book required a lot of barrel-scraping to craft satisfying narratives out of frustratingly incomplete stories. Still, Tallack has done an admirable job parsing fact from fiction and extracting broad lessons about the truths that might lie deeper than our atlas pages:
Absence is terrifying, and so we fill the gaps in our knowledge with invented things. These bring us comfort, but they conflict, too, with our desire for certainty and understanding.
The science of navigation has worked towards the eradication … of mystery, and to an astonishing degree it has succeeded. We can know where we are and what direction we are traveling with just the click of a button. And though that technology brings its own kind of wonder, part of us mourns what has been lost.
With its excellent color illustrations, this would make a perfect coffee table book to dip into whenever you have five or ten spare minutes to read an essay or two. I would particularly recommend it to readers who are captivated by maps, historical oddities and hoaxes.
My thanks to Kristian Kerr of Birlinn Polygon for the free copy.
Originally published with images on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Further reading: Two similar books I’ve read are The Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna (about the search for Thule) and Banvard’s Folly by Paul Collins (more tangentially relevant – it’s about historical mistakes and failures). You might also try Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands.
May 9, 2018
The title of this book refers to a very specific type of island; not one that is yet to be discovered, but one was believed to be real at some point but is no longer on the map. These are the products of imagination, deception and simple human error. They are phantoms and fakes: an archipelago of ex-isles and forgotten lands.
Gathered in this book are two dozen islands, each covered in a 3-4 page mini-essay within one of several categories:
To be fair, some islands could appear in a cross-section of these categories, and one cannot envy Tallack the choices he had to make when dividing these islands. And the book itself, while not going too deeply into the history of each island as to lose the reader, also offers an interesting cross-section of information, from geography, to myths and legends to, of course, history.
The rest of this review can be found HERE!
Gathered in this book are two dozen islands, each covered in a 3-4 page mini-essay within one of several categories:
- Islands of Life and Death
- Setting Out
- The Age of Exploration
- Sunken Lands
- Fraudulent Islands
- Recent Un-Discoveries
To be fair, some islands could appear in a cross-section of these categories, and one cannot envy Tallack the choices he had to make when dividing these islands. And the book itself, while not going too deeply into the history of each island as to lose the reader, also offers an interesting cross-section of information, from geography, to myths and legends to, of course, history.
The rest of this review can be found HERE!
February 28, 2019
"Faced with the sky we imagine gods; faced with the ocean we imagine islands. Absence is terrifying, and so we fill the gaps in our knowledge with invented things."
You know that quote of unknown origin floating around the internet that boasts: “we know more about outer space than our oceans”? Well, that’s actually kinda true. Especially if you whittle it down to just our solar system versus Earth’s mysterious salt waters. Even if you consider just the surface of the oceans, we as a species arestill not fully confident of our knowledge of every island, reef, shoal, and the like. There is much we have yet to discover.
Tallack’s The Un-Discovered Islands provides an examination of 24 islands once believed to be real, but have since been removed from modern maps, and most of humankind’s memories. Even as recently as a few decades ago, some islands have been “un-discovered”. While most of these were genuine human errors, there were countless islands made up by nothing else but mens’ egos and greed. (More on that below.)
Tallack describes the history and eventual undoing of islands large and small, all over the globe, in more or less in chronological order. I believe this to be one of the book’s biggest downfalls. We begin in the era of Plato and end up in 2012, but we travel back and forth in history so many times, I felt dizzy. The flow was choppy, and the chapter groupings made little sense to me.
The Un-Discovered Islandsreminded me vaguely of Lore, the podcast created by Aaron Mahnke in the way it is told, which I realize could appeal to many. However, to me, it gave me a similar impression in that it was a lot of random facts mashed together in a disorganized matter, that left me feeling pieces have been left out. Both a promised collection of mystery and wonder that fails to fully deliver.
The main lesson of this book ends up being that a man’s ego is so big, it can make up even masses piece of floating land: fake islands “discovered” in the name of some other rich man’s ego, remaining an error on maps for centuries. There’s nothing mysterious, new, or revolutionary about any of that, as Un-Discovered Islands tries to convince me otherwise with each chapter.
The art, by Katie Scott is fantastic, but annoyingly each piece is repeated twice (at the section introductions and again with each new island).There are full page color spreads of a tiny image blown up on one page. For one island, there is a beautiful narwhal embedded in the text, but there was no mention of narwhals anywhere.
I still learned a lot of interesting facts from this read, and consider it a great starting or jumping off point for further research or curiousity. Other than that, I would search elsewhere if you’re looking for a deep view into mythologies such as Atlantis, and possible mysterious islands of the past.
"For millennia, explorers had edges to reach and to go beyond. They had blanks to fill and terra incognita to discover. [...] There may be no more unknown islands to be found in the world, but perhaps there is another ex-isle still intact, a phantom waiting to be un-discovered. And perhaps we should leave it that way."
((2.5 stars out of 5, rounded up))
September 28, 2024
‘Faced with the sky we imagine gods; faced with the ocean we imagine islands. Absence is terrifying, and so we fill the gaps in our knowledge with invented things. These bring us comfort, but they conflict, too, with our desire for certainty and understanding. And sometimes that desire gives us back the absences we sought to fill.’
In this book, delightfully illustrated by Katie Scott, Malachy Tallack writes about twenty-four islands which were once believed to be real. These islands no longer appear on maps. Some of them were the result of human error, some were the products of imagination, while others were deliberately invented.
Some of the names may be familiar. I’ve heard of Atlantis, Thule, Frisland, The Isles of the Blessed, and Hawaiki. But I don’t remember reading about most of the others. I was intrigued to read about Hufaidh in the Southern Iraq marshes. This is a space which is both real, and mythological. This area, where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers meet was the ancestral home of the Ma‘dān (the ‘Marsh Arabs’) and was known to European visitors including the explorer Wilfred Thesiger, who visited times during the 1950s, and the writer Gavin Maxwell who travelled there in 1956. It was from these marshes that Gavin Maxwell brought back the otter Mijbil, the subject of his book ‘Ring of Bright Water’. Sadly, most of the marshland has now been destroyed because of action taken by Saddam Hussein at the end of the first Gulf War.
‘Like many such islands, Hufaidh existed in a region bridged between life and death. It was part paradise and part hell, both of this world and of another.’
Atlantis may have been pure invention (thanks, Plato), but in this book Mr Tallack writes of other islands believed to have sunk. Sarah Ann Island in the Pacific (claimed by the USA for its guano deposits) is one such island.
I was amused to read that Bermeja, an island in the Gulf of Mexico, the subject of dispute between the USA and Mexico, was only proven not to exist in 2009. That’s one way to solve territorial disputes.
‘Today the era of new island discoveries is over, and the age of un-discovery is likewise coming to an end.’
I enjoyed reading about these islands, and I especially enjoyed Katie Scott’s marvellous illustrations. While it’s good that improvements in navigation have reduced the uncertainty about which islands exist and where, I liked how uncertainty provided fertile ground for the imagination of mystery.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In this book, delightfully illustrated by Katie Scott, Malachy Tallack writes about twenty-four islands which were once believed to be real. These islands no longer appear on maps. Some of them were the result of human error, some were the products of imagination, while others were deliberately invented.
Some of the names may be familiar. I’ve heard of Atlantis, Thule, Frisland, The Isles of the Blessed, and Hawaiki. But I don’t remember reading about most of the others. I was intrigued to read about Hufaidh in the Southern Iraq marshes. This is a space which is both real, and mythological. This area, where the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers meet was the ancestral home of the Ma‘dān (the ‘Marsh Arabs’) and was known to European visitors including the explorer Wilfred Thesiger, who visited times during the 1950s, and the writer Gavin Maxwell who travelled there in 1956. It was from these marshes that Gavin Maxwell brought back the otter Mijbil, the subject of his book ‘Ring of Bright Water’. Sadly, most of the marshland has now been destroyed because of action taken by Saddam Hussein at the end of the first Gulf War.
‘Like many such islands, Hufaidh existed in a region bridged between life and death. It was part paradise and part hell, both of this world and of another.’
Atlantis may have been pure invention (thanks, Plato), but in this book Mr Tallack writes of other islands believed to have sunk. Sarah Ann Island in the Pacific (claimed by the USA for its guano deposits) is one such island.
I was amused to read that Bermeja, an island in the Gulf of Mexico, the subject of dispute between the USA and Mexico, was only proven not to exist in 2009. That’s one way to solve territorial disputes.
‘Today the era of new island discoveries is over, and the age of un-discovery is likewise coming to an end.’
I enjoyed reading about these islands, and I especially enjoyed Katie Scott’s marvellous illustrations. While it’s good that improvements in navigation have reduced the uncertainty about which islands exist and where, I liked how uncertainty provided fertile ground for the imagination of mystery.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
November 2, 2016
Deserts have been known for mirages for millennia; the oasis that appears in the distance offering shade and water that as approached vanishes. Strangely enough, the same happens at sea, islands are glimpsed through fog and rough seas, navigation errors mean that sailors find places that exist elsewhere and others are purely figments of imagination. In this high quality book, Tallack has bought together the myths and legends of two dozen islands that were thought to exist, and now no longer do.
There are sections on sunken islands, un-discovered islands and mythical islands. Some are well known, Atlantis probably and the Isles of the Blessed being the some of them. Others are obscure and unheard of, until now. There are two or three pages of stories and background on each island, with some speculation as to the why’s and wherefores of their appearance and disappearance. Throughout the book are the delightful and colourful illustrations by Katie Scott; they add so much to the narrative of the book.
It is ideal for map and geography lovers and is a beautiful produced book too. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be much depth to the stories. It is not the fault of Tallack, but it is understandable when you remember that these are places that have no basis in reality, the tangible facts are scarce.
There are sections on sunken islands, un-discovered islands and mythical islands. Some are well known, Atlantis probably and the Isles of the Blessed being the some of them. Others are obscure and unheard of, until now. There are two or three pages of stories and background on each island, with some speculation as to the why’s and wherefores of their appearance and disappearance. Throughout the book are the delightful and colourful illustrations by Katie Scott; they add so much to the narrative of the book.
It is ideal for map and geography lovers and is a beautiful produced book too. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be much depth to the stories. It is not the fault of Tallack, but it is understandable when you remember that these are places that have no basis in reality, the tangible facts are scarce.
January 10, 2018
Here was a book that was quite interesting for those who may enjoy good travel stories from the past and/or for those who are fans of fantasy. As such the reader is taken on a nice and snug little journey to explore just a few handful of islands that once upon a time used to exist whether they were caused from human creativity, nature deceptions, cartography mistakes or even real places that just very slowly receded back into the background where they had popped up from.
As a result there are sections that help to band the islands main description together such as fantasy islands, those "found" during the Age of Exploration and so much more. These groups are given an introduction that gives the reader a general idea of what they may find in the following pages and some more basic information. From there each entry is given about four pages - one is normally a full color illustration and the other three are small reports of each island mentioned.
Whether the names are familiar or obscure, the author takes the reader onto a bit of a background to introduce the island, the origins of it and how it has influenced navigation. Sometimes there are mentions that focus more on particular episodes within the history of the island thus giving a nice background but more or less most of the information is given on how the island has been debunked and passed into the imaginary folder.
At the same time the reader is treated to a beautiful collection of illustrations that are scattered throughout the book. The major focus of the drawings for each entry is basically related to the entry with the only one that I didn't quite enjoy was the oil drops for Bermeja. Really was there nothing else of any importance for this ex-island than the fact that it pertained to the resource grab-all between Mexico and the United States.
And even for the book's focus to be on maps the only map showing these particular islands was the modern map as on the cover leaves with approximation of the islands. Other older maps have been excluded from the illustration of the book itself.
All in all this would make for a wonderful present to the travelers in your life who have been intrigued by travel stories whether of the nature around them or even lost locations. With its nostalgic tone and fact presentation there is just a bit of everything within the entries to whet the appetite of the traveler and to make the romantic to sigh for the days when mysteries were allowed to flourish along with the well-known.
As a result there are sections that help to band the islands main description together such as fantasy islands, those "found" during the Age of Exploration and so much more. These groups are given an introduction that gives the reader a general idea of what they may find in the following pages and some more basic information. From there each entry is given about four pages - one is normally a full color illustration and the other three are small reports of each island mentioned.
Whether the names are familiar or obscure, the author takes the reader onto a bit of a background to introduce the island, the origins of it and how it has influenced navigation. Sometimes there are mentions that focus more on particular episodes within the history of the island thus giving a nice background but more or less most of the information is given on how the island has been debunked and passed into the imaginary folder.
At the same time the reader is treated to a beautiful collection of illustrations that are scattered throughout the book. The major focus of the drawings for each entry is basically related to the entry with the only one that I didn't quite enjoy was the oil drops for Bermeja. Really was there nothing else of any importance for this ex-island than the fact that it pertained to the resource grab-all between Mexico and the United States.
And even for the book's focus to be on maps the only map showing these particular islands was the modern map as on the cover leaves with approximation of the islands. Other older maps have been excluded from the illustration of the book itself.
All in all this would make for a wonderful present to the travelers in your life who have been intrigued by travel stories whether of the nature around them or even lost locations. With its nostalgic tone and fact presentation there is just a bit of everything within the entries to whet the appetite of the traveler and to make the romantic to sigh for the days when mysteries were allowed to flourish along with the well-known.
December 17, 2017
This is a beautiful and fascinating book. High-quality cover and glossy paper make the colorful illustrations pop out. The un-discovered islands of the title include mythical islands, phantoms, fakes, and hoaxes, and cartographical errors. A few pages are devoted to each island or group of islands, so it’s easy to read this book in bits and pieces. Lots of history, mythology, geography, and cartographical exploration here. While it would take some time and travel to specialized libraries, it would be fun to research and look at some of these islands a little closer and track their appearances and disappearances on actual maps. My favorite entry was the one on Isle Phelipeaux, an island incorrectly noted in the Treaty of Paris, which was drawn up after the Revolutionary War, and noted the borders of the United States of America. Isle Phelipeaux was technically somewhere in the Great Lakes region, but ended up being an example of cartographic fraud. The Un-Discovered Islands is a fascinating aside to the age of discovery, when exploration was shrouded by mystery and the unknown.
December 21, 2025
A pretty book nicely illustrated and beautiful to look at and flip through. Unfortunately the content itself isn't that appealing. Strangely the drawings appear to be that for a children's book, but the writing about obscure 'pseudo' islands is anything but juvenile. The tiny print is not well contrasted (not dark enough) and needed some scrutiny, and the stories about the islands often follow a repetitive pattern. Some sailors thought they sighted land in the ocean and recorded it, but subsequent travelers fail to relocate said island. The names involved merely vary. Motives for inventing islands were plenty, for fame and glory or to honor patrons mainly. Some mythical islands of ancient times, like Atlantis and Lemuria are slightly more interesting to read about, but the very short write ups on each does not do sufficient justice in a format like this.
September 3, 2024
An interesting book with gorgeous illustrations and some good parts. This book gives an overview of some of the islands that have been mistakenly "discovered" only to later be determined as non-existent. Some sections were intriguing and unusual, but overall many of the islands had similar stories- one explorer takes vague notes, then a cartographer includes an island on a map, another explorer later is unable to find said island. Of course, the islands rooted in myth had different stories and were the most compelling to read about.
I appreciated that this book was written in a one island per chapter style, making it enjoyable to pick up and put down again.
I appreciated that this book was written in a one island per chapter style, making it enjoyable to pick up and put down again.
February 7, 2019
This is a lovely addition to my coffee table collection :-). The book is illustrated with beautiful colour drawings in each chapter and the writer provides a short description of the mythical island being described, as well some nice historical context.
The only quibble I have is that the text is very small! The font size (and pale colour) is very difficult for those of us with poor and ageing eyesight.
The only quibble I have is that the text is very small! The font size (and pale colour) is very difficult for those of us with poor and ageing eyesight.
July 20, 2021
Short review: An amazing novel for beginners who are interested in cartography and islands. This book includes mysteries and phantoms about the stories revolving around the islands. A book for adventure lovers and mystery seekers.
March 11, 2018
This was a really engaging and interesting book. The stories of imaginary islands were my favorite as opposed to the sunken or simply misplaced ones. The accompanying illustrations are spectacular
November 6, 2018
Light, airy, and without much meat, but a nice quick and enjoyable amuse bouche.
July 28, 2019
Really interesting essays about different islands and their origins that is also well designed and has beautiful illustrations.
January 21, 2021
Interesting but I'm not convinced.
December 8, 2022
An enjoyable light quick read about islands that were mistaken or never there, yet persisted for centuries.
Believe it or not, but a few made it even into the 2000s!
Believe it or not, but a few made it even into the 2000s!
January 24, 2018
As a kid I was nuts for esoteric fact books, the late-eighties apogee of which was David Feldman’s oeuvre, but what was precocious in a preteen is obnoxious in an adult. In my thirties, I’m a load of guff at trivia and I chalk a lot of that up to self-preservation; I have a pedantic streak a mile wide—I know this about myself—and I sometimes cannot help but blurt out the historical merits of chopsticks when someone asks me to pass the ramen. Or when someone shows me their honeymoon photos: “Those pillars carved to look like statues of women? They’re called Caryatids and the real ones are split between the Acropolis Museum and the British Museum; these are reproductions. It’s really contentious that Britain hasn't returned the one they took yet.” Yeah, I can be that guy and will proceed to wallow in my own stew of embarrassment for the following week. Honeymoon photos, let them just be fun! Best for me not to read books specifically designed to fill my head with itty-bitty details that I will compulsively unleash upon the unsuspecting. But seriously, isn’t it interesting how different Greece and Italy handle their historical preservation for a period that, while not contemporaneous, are often conflated in the historiography of western foundational civilizations? Please, let me tell you...
So yes, I am aware that it is up their with my least endearing qualities. The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes is a book replete with facts that need to be let out somewhere, which would make it a danger to myself and others except that now there is goodreads. If you leaf back through any of my non-fiction reviews, you’ll see each book has at least one or two facts that I have isolated; these are facts that I find neat, or surprising, or shamed by for my ignorance. Reviews, then, serve as a pressure valve to release my repressed didacticism: see the above reference to flawless Grecian remakes versus jarring Italian delineation between original construction and modern structural refurbishment.
But you, dear reader, have opted in, so I feel no hot shame wave in telling you about Atlantis. You see, I definitely picked up a historical fact about Atlantis that I will undoubtedly blurt out sometime in the next six months, a fact that I should have known already—at least I feel like I should have known already—but didn’t. I will now overcompensate for my ignorance by citing this fact frequently: ostensibly to share in my wonder but in all honesty as an effort to subtly gauge how common this knowledge truly is amongst my peers, giving me a better frame of reference for how stupid I should feel:
Did you know that already? I somehow did not; should I have? The book was chockablock with bits like that—Thule was a cool one that I had never heard of—but Atlantis was the most prominent because I knew of it of it without actually knowing anything at all. So thanks, Un-Discovered, I guess, for showing me I didn’t even know enough to ask why Atlantis was a concept in the first place. What’s next, am I going to find out that the world map I have internalized is hopelessly distorted in terms of landmass? Oh, wait, I just read about this guy named Mercator, and— hey, where are you going?
So yes, I am aware that it is up their with my least endearing qualities. The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes is a book replete with facts that need to be let out somewhere, which would make it a danger to myself and others except that now there is goodreads. If you leaf back through any of my non-fiction reviews, you’ll see each book has at least one or two facts that I have isolated; these are facts that I find neat, or surprising, or shamed by for my ignorance. Reviews, then, serve as a pressure valve to release my repressed didacticism: see the above reference to flawless Grecian remakes versus jarring Italian delineation between original construction and modern structural refurbishment.
But you, dear reader, have opted in, so I feel no hot shame wave in telling you about Atlantis. You see, I definitely picked up a historical fact about Atlantis that I will undoubtedly blurt out sometime in the next six months, a fact that I should have known already—at least I feel like I should have known already—but didn’t. I will now overcompensate for my ignorance by citing this fact frequently: ostensibly to share in my wonder but in all honesty as an effort to subtly gauge how common this knowledge truly is amongst my peers, giving me a better frame of reference for how stupid I should feel:
Though undoubtedly the most famous of all the ex-isles, Atlantis is not strictly speaking an un-discovered island; it is a fictional island, invented by Plato for allegorical purposes. The story — told in two of his dialogues, Timaeus and Critias — was never supposed to be taken literally. But while scholars today are almost universally agree on this point, there was more than enough ambiguity in those works to fuel two thousand years and more of speculative pseudoscience.“Gosh, did you know? Atlantis—the whole myth—it was Plato! And people knew it was an allegory, but it still somehow got purple monkey dishwashered into a precursor civilization! Isn’t that interesting??”
Did you know that already? I somehow did not; should I have? The book was chockablock with bits like that—Thule was a cool one that I had never heard of—but Atlantis was the most prominent because I knew of it of it without actually knowing anything at all. So thanks, Un-Discovered, I guess, for showing me I didn’t even know enough to ask why Atlantis was a concept in the first place. What’s next, am I going to find out that the world map I have internalized is hopelessly distorted in terms of landmass? Oh, wait, I just read about this guy named Mercator, and— hey, where are you going?
February 19, 2018
The Un-Discovered Islands discusses an unusual topic: illustrated vignettes of 24 islands that used to be on the map, until cartographers learned that they didn’t exist. Mythology, human error, wishful thinking, and downright fraud play into this theme. From the well-known “sunken” islands of Atlantis and Lemuria, to (non-discoverer of the North Pole) Robert Peary’s self-aggrandizing “discovery” of the fraudulent Crocker Land, to the conveniently created Bermeja, for which oil drilling rights were granted in the Caribbean, these islands influenced popular culture, politics, and personal gain.
Tallack divides his vignettes into 6 sections: Islands of Life and Death (ancestral and mythological), Setting Out (islands discovered by early explorers around the turn of the first millennium), The Age of Exploration (islands discovered by Europeans in the 1400s – 1600s), Sunken Islands (“sunken” for cultural or political reasons), Fraudulent Islands (intentionally misrepresented), and Recent Un-Discoveries (what were cartographers thinking?).
My favorite island is Hawaiki, the ancestral and spiritual home of New Zealand’s Maoris. As in the cultures of many Pacific Islanders, Maori ancestral history is migrational and also creational. The name Hawaii derives from Hawaiki, as at one time they were thought to be the same physical island.
Katie Scott’s illustrations enhance the text beautifully. Largely botanical, they illustrate ocean life, pivotal people, ancient navigational tools, and other relevant aspects of each story. Readers who enjoy beautiful books that can be enjoyed slowly, pondering text and illustrations, will enjoy this book. Those who love islands, myth, and mystery will also like it.
Tallack divides his vignettes into 6 sections: Islands of Life and Death (ancestral and mythological), Setting Out (islands discovered by early explorers around the turn of the first millennium), The Age of Exploration (islands discovered by Europeans in the 1400s – 1600s), Sunken Islands (“sunken” for cultural or political reasons), Fraudulent Islands (intentionally misrepresented), and Recent Un-Discoveries (what were cartographers thinking?).
My favorite island is Hawaiki, the ancestral and spiritual home of New Zealand’s Maoris. As in the cultures of many Pacific Islanders, Maori ancestral history is migrational and also creational. The name Hawaii derives from Hawaiki, as at one time they were thought to be the same physical island.
Katie Scott’s illustrations enhance the text beautifully. Largely botanical, they illustrate ocean life, pivotal people, ancient navigational tools, and other relevant aspects of each story. Readers who enjoy beautiful books that can be enjoyed slowly, pondering text and illustrations, will enjoy this book. Those who love islands, myth, and mystery will also like it.
March 11, 2018
More like 2.5/5 really but I ended up frustated with the book. It was interesting and the drawings were cute -not amazing or anything but quite cute nevertheless. But I was expecting a lot more information out of this book, half the pages are drawings or index (omg so many index) and the information provided for each location was 2 pages without drawings tops. I didn't learn anything about the locations I already knew because the information provided is waaaay too simple and way too little, this book is not for people that already know something about this kind of places because you will feel like you are being given a kid explanation of each place.
I would only recommend if you are interested in this kind of thing but have never ever read anything about the places described and want an introduction. But if you, like me, want to read this book with the expectation of furthering your knowledge with little know facts, lenghty explanations, etc. Then don't bother, because as much as the author claims to be an expert on the field I could have written all this stuff myself if given one year to do some research.
I would only recommend if you are interested in this kind of thing but have never ever read anything about the places described and want an introduction. But if you, like me, want to read this book with the expectation of furthering your knowledge with little know facts, lenghty explanations, etc. Then don't bother, because as much as the author claims to be an expert on the field I could have written all this stuff myself if given one year to do some research.
October 1, 2020
For some reason, I always find the idea of phantom islands and similar inaccurate geographies to be interesting; I should probably have made a tag for it, though it is a bit late now.
This was a rather light read, but enjoyable enough. It has a rather breezy style and feels like it is intended more as an art book for a casual audience than the more scholarly tone of other works on this subject. There are some references listed at the end of the book, but they don't feel substantial enough to really support the writing, especially some of the bolder claims put forth.
The art is nice and attractive, but often only tangential to the topic. There are no charts or detailed maps, only a world map in the front cover showing approximate locations of the islands. There are 24 islands (or groups thereof) discussed in the book, divided into six sections of four. It works, though it is just a bit too neatly organized, and the divisions often feel a bit arbitrary; several islands could fit into more than one section.
This was a rather light read, but enjoyable enough. It has a rather breezy style and feels like it is intended more as an art book for a casual audience than the more scholarly tone of other works on this subject. There are some references listed at the end of the book, but they don't feel substantial enough to really support the writing, especially some of the bolder claims put forth.
The art is nice and attractive, but often only tangential to the topic. There are no charts or detailed maps, only a world map in the front cover showing approximate locations of the islands. There are 24 islands (or groups thereof) discussed in the book, divided into six sections of four. It works, though it is just a bit too neatly organized, and the divisions often feel a bit arbitrary; several islands could fit into more than one section.
June 15, 2017
I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for feedback and review.
This was a pretty interesting little book that was right up my alley. I have a tattoo of a rejected street map proposal for the city of New Orleans. I'm always eager to read up on interesting cartography quirks. And this book has all that. I learned a lot about the changing ways we've identified islands over the years. This book is a great survey of a niche subject.
And maybe my map love biased me a little here, but I did have one major issue here. In the version being sent out through NetGalley there aren't any maps! All the information is great. The writing is solid. But it seems borderline irresponsible to not provide copies of all the funky maps that are referenced in the book.
Illustrations of fish are great and all. They're super interesting to look at, but they're not a great substitute.
This was a pretty interesting little book that was right up my alley. I have a tattoo of a rejected street map proposal for the city of New Orleans. I'm always eager to read up on interesting cartography quirks. And this book has all that. I learned a lot about the changing ways we've identified islands over the years. This book is a great survey of a niche subject.
And maybe my map love biased me a little here, but I did have one major issue here. In the version being sent out through NetGalley there aren't any maps! All the information is great. The writing is solid. But it seems borderline irresponsible to not provide copies of all the funky maps that are referenced in the book.
Illustrations of fish are great and all. They're super interesting to look at, but they're not a great substitute.
December 19, 2017
This title has been provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Tallack’s look at mythical isles in ‘The Un-Discovered Islands’ is oddly timely in the age of Google Maps and Fake News. The short volume explores islands throughout the age of exploration and beyond, paired with lovely illustrations by Katie Scott. I gained plenty of insight into the early practices of cartography and the common causes for such errors. Although the topic is compelling, the cases covered are quite short and I sometimes wished for more information on how the myths developed and continued rather than how they were debunked. That said, this is still a worthwhile and beautiful read for map nerds and travel lovers alike.
‘The Un-Discovered Islands’ is available now through booksellers and libraries large and small.
Tallack’s look at mythical isles in ‘The Un-Discovered Islands’ is oddly timely in the age of Google Maps and Fake News. The short volume explores islands throughout the age of exploration and beyond, paired with lovely illustrations by Katie Scott. I gained plenty of insight into the early practices of cartography and the common causes for such errors. Although the topic is compelling, the cases covered are quite short and I sometimes wished for more information on how the myths developed and continued rather than how they were debunked. That said, this is still a worthwhile and beautiful read for map nerds and travel lovers alike.
‘The Un-Discovered Islands’ is available now through booksellers and libraries large and small.
July 2, 2017
This is a very beautifully constructed and illustrated "coffee table" book - i.e. the sort of thing to be browsed and one that may start a series of amusing conversations among people with a taste for whimsy, an interest in exploration -- or who may simply have consumed a few extra glasses of port after a good meal. Accounts of adventure, deception or foolishness are, after all, what a great deal of human history consists of. There's nothing of consequence here but much to amuse. My one quibble is that the publishers in their effort to present a handsome, artistic volume chose a not-quite-black typeface on a buff background, requiring good eyesight and much brighter ambient light than is likely to be the case by the fireside in the sort of situation I just described.
December 20, 2017
I believed this book on The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes to address islands that either no longer existed due to destruction or finding an error in past cartography efforts. While it was a curiosity to browse through the illustrations and short descriptions, the book was shorter than I anticipated and did nothing more than wet my appetite for more through information from a trusted source of reference. I would envision it as a coffee table conversation starter or for a casual explorer. Full Disclosure: I was allowed to read a copy of this book for free as a member of NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not influenced to give a positive review.
February 28, 2018
I was excited to read this new publication as it's such a neat premise: a history of islands that were once thought to exist, but whose origins have proven mythical, due to navigational or cartographic errors, or wishful thinking. Incredibly, some of these islands have been removed from maps only within the last decade. Though boasting an attractive cover and internal artwork, the book would have been further enhanced by images of some of the erroneous maps showing the islands in question. I also couldn't help but wonder: Many islands have become "un-discovered" with the advent of satellites, but has the reverse occurred? Has satellite technology discovered any islands in a remote part of the world that no humans had encountered previously?
June 2, 2018
A beautiful book, but a bit disappointing in facts--I was expecting a more comprehensive encyclopedia of sorts of the islands. It also lacked a comprehensive bibliography, which would have been nice to have seeing as the entries are very short. Although that might be because some of the islands simply don't have much written about them to begin with. There was also never a clear boundary between what was considered made-up and mirage (Crocker Land is first and foremost a mirage, yet it was under the invented islands chapter) or whether or not the hypothesis that some of these phantom islands have sunk is valid or not.
I did learn some new fun facts from this though, so it's still worth a read if you like maritime and exploration history.
I did learn some new fun facts from this though, so it's still worth a read if you like maritime and exploration history.
September 15, 2018
Best read for what it is and not what it isn't: this is a collection of curious, an abbreviated appendix of the strange and sometimes serious "ex-isles" that Tallack deemed most interesting. Each "ex-isle" merits three to four pages of historical context and revision, and throughout there is an even tone that both accepts the strange happenings of the world but also delights in the logic of exposure. A Shetlander himself, Tallack himself is attuned to the specialness of islands.
Don't expect to find a coherent narrative or range of critical insights, however; this one's a novelty issue best found from the library.
Don't expect to find a coherent narrative or range of critical insights, however; this one's a novelty issue best found from the library.
August 7, 2022
This was an interesting and quick read, but I went into it expecting something more substantial. Each island only gets a couple pages of a quick overview, with a very brief history. I was hoping for an in-depth look at and discussion about mythical/fake islands, but these are more like basic encyclopedia entries. And the illustrations are beautiful, but generic. Like pictures of a tree or a piece of coral. Again, I was hoping for something like an artist's rendition of these mythical islands, or a made up map. The generic illustrations didn't really add anything to the book.
Still an interesting read.
Still an interesting read.
February 24, 2020
Interesting but lightweight essays on islands that never really existed, either through error, misidentification, or outright invention, and which have been un-discovered by modern mapmakers. Satellite mapping has pretty much eliminated the last of them. Some interesting leads for further research or creative endeavors. My only real complaint is that the book is printed in a fashionably pale font, rather hard on my aging eyes.
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