Name: William Morris's The Sundering Flood
Author: William Morris

The ‘centrality of the land to the narrative of The Sundering Flood is evidenced initially by the prominence Morris accords it at the start of the text.’ (Smee, 2007)

The novel is introduced by the map and also several pages of ‘a detailed account of the geography of the land of the Sundering Flood.’ (Smee, 2007). This fully articulated and detailed worldbuilding, which later became a hallmark of the fantasy genre, is often cited as original to Morris’s approach to fiction. The map of The Sundering Flood – credited to illustrator and map maker Herbert William Cribb (dates unknown) – is also notable for being among the earliest examples in modern fantasy of a self-contained chart of a wholly fictional world, rather than a schematic extension of real geography.

On the map, topographical features such as mountains, valleys, deserts, rivers, and narrative sites – locations associated directly with the protagonists and their adventures – are arrayed in a coherent spatial schema. Connecting the map to the narrative, the sites of specific events in the novel are tagged, for example, ‘Where Osberne shot the Hart,’ ‘Here they fought the Black Skimmers,’ and ‘Here Osberne finds Elfhild’. A great river, evocative of the Nile, rises in the mountains and runs like an artery through this imagined world, ultimately reaching the sea at a port city. At the lower left, an inset plan details that city itself.

The map is not mere decoration but an integral component of Morris’s world-building, anchoring the romance in a landscape at once tangible and entirely imagined. In doing so, it anticipates the cartographic conventions of later fantasy, from The Lord of the Rings to the countless secondary worlds that followed.

Ex Carta

 introduced what is often regarded as the first wholly invented fantasy map. Its chart of rivers, cities, and battlefields anchors romance in a self-contained secondary world, anticipating Tolkien and modern epic fantasy.

William Morris (1834–1896) was a Victorian polymath, now largely remembered for his profound impact on the visual arts through what became known as the Arts and Crafts movement. He was also a poet, novelist, translator, and active political campaigner within the socialist movement. 

 was his final work, prepared in rough draft and partly dictated from his deathbed; it was published posthumously in 1897 by the Kelmscott Press. The narrative follows Osberne Wulfgrimsson and Elfhild, lovers separated by a mighty river – the titular Sundering Flood – against a backdrop of invasion, quests, enchanted swords, and supernatural forces.

The novel has often been cited as a formative step in the emerging tradition of modern fantasy literature:

For while his fiction combined much of the antiquarian romanticism of Walter Scott and even a touch of the eerie horror of Horace Walpole and the Gothic novelists, Morris was writing something that was basically different from either the historical novel or the novel of supernatural terrors – he had invented the heroic fantasy novel. 

 was not Morris’s first work of fantasy – his earlier romances include 

 (1894) – it is frequently recognised as one of the earliest novels to combine secondary-world narrative with a fully self-contained fictional geography. This achievement was acknowledged by later fantasy authors, including J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, who explicitly admired Morris’s romances and maps.

Although fantasy as a genre has repeatedly faced criticism for being escapist and therefore unserious, 

, as a foundational text, complicates this judgement from the outset. The novel’s plot reflects themes consonant with Morris’s socialist convictions in ways that invite political interpretation as much as escapist reading: ‘the final struggle is of the “Small Crafts and the lesser commons” (aided by good knights) against a corrupt monarchy' (Clute, 1997).

The ‘centrality of the land to the narrative of The Sundering Flood is evidenced initially by the prominence Morris accords it at the start of the text.’ (Smee, 2007)

The novel is introduced by the map and also several pages of ‘a detailed account of the geography of the land of the Sundering Flood' (Smee, 2007). This fully articulated and detailed worldbuilding, which later became a hallmark of the fantasy genre, is often cited as original to Morris’s approach to fiction. The map of 

 – credited to illustrator and map maker Herbert William Cribb (dates unknown) – is also notable for being among the earliest examples in modern fantasy of a self-contained chart of a wholly fictional world, rather than a schematic extension of real geography.

On the map, topographical features such as mountains, valleys, deserts, rivers, and narrative sites – locations associated directly with the protagonists and their adventures – are arrayed in a coherent spatial schema. Connecting the map to the narrative, the sites of specific events in the novel are tagged, for example, ‘Where Osberne shot the Hart,’ ‘Here they fought the Black Skimmers,’ and ‘Here Osberne finds Elfhild’. A great river, evocative of the Nile, rises in the mountains and runs like an artery through this imagined world, ultimately reaching the sea at a port city. At the lower left, an inset plan details that city itself.

The map is not mere decoration but an integral component of Morris’s world-building, anchoring the romance in a landscape at once tangible and entirely imagined. In doing so, it anticipates the cartographic conventions of later fantasy, from 

 to the countless secondary worlds that followed.