Map of Middle Earth Discovered with Handwritten Notes by J.R.R. Tolkien

In a startling yet wonderful development for Tolkien fans everywhere, a once lost map of Middle Earth has been discovered with handwritten notes by J.R.R. Tolkien.

As Time magazine said, this "requires a bigger celebration than Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday." The map was discovered inside a very old copy of The Lord of the Rings owned by illustrator Pauline Baynes, who actually worked with Tolkien to creat a color map of Middle Earth that was published back in 1970.

Contained within this map are notes where Tolkien "corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map's various flora and fauna. Hobbiton, he notes, ' is assumed to be approx at latitude of Oxford.'" Not only that, several other famous cities have been mentioned: "Jerusalem, Belgrade and Cyprus are referenced and it seems Ravenna, Italy inspired the Middle-earth city 'Minas Tirith'."

I'm super excited about this latest discovery revealing more about the iconic world. No one, not even C.S. Lewis, has been more influential in the development of the modern fantasy genre. Orcs, elves, dwarves, and more all found in fantasy today resemble the ones in Tolkien's works quite a bit. To have more details about this work come available is, as Ian McKellen (Gandalf) put it: "Perhaps the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years."

And it can be yours for the low price of just £ 60,000, or roughly $92,118. You can check out this and other rare books at Blackwell's Rare Book's website.