For the first time, material from a private collection of often-famous maps derived from fiction will go on public view, in an exhibition at Zurich’s Central Library opening tomorrow (4 September). From the first printed maps of Dante’s Hell, dating from 1506, to images of Treasure Island hand-drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson, 60 examples from Sunderland Cohen’s 168-piece holding have been sent to Switzerland for inclusion in the show. The exhibition’s curator, Jost Schmid-Lanter, who is head of the library’s map collection expects visitors’ childhood memories to be stirred by works tied to Narnia, Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh.
Sunderland Cohen, a lawyer who lives in central London, began to acquire the maps that make up the collection, called Ex Carta, in 2024, spurred on by a love of fantasy fiction. “I read the Hobbit when I was ten,” she says. Her interests go beyond historical fiction to gaming and cinema.
Some of the first printed maps of Hell from Dante’s Divine Comedy are included in the exhibition
Courtesy of Zentralbibliothek Zürich
Other objects in her collection include a map that featured in the manual of the original, 1986 version of the popular video game The Legend of Zelda, and a prop map showing the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that Sunderland Cohen acquired in an auction of movie ephemera. “My only rule is that it must be printed matter,” she says.
Collecting is a habit Sunderland Cohen inherited from her father, Neil Sunderland, whose initial enthusiasm for maps was inspired by his love of adventurous travel, though his first acquisition was most likely a map of his native Lancashire. Now the Sunderland Collection contains more than 150 rare world maps and atlases from 1200 to 1800, and from a range of cultures; they offer a unique lens on humankind’s attempts to unravel the earth’s terrestrial and celestial geography, from early guess-work to iterations of paths travelled and plotted. Ex Carta, on the other hand, focuses on worlds that exist only in the imagination. Of both collections, Sunderland Cohen says: “We’re very bijou. We are very focused on content and condition.”
A map that featured in the manual of the original, 1986 floppy-disk version of the popular video game The Legend of Zelda
Courtesy of Zentralbibliothek Zürich
Since 2021 the Sunderland Collection has been available in digital form, as a site called Oculi Mundi. “We didn’t want to put money into a foundation, or taking on a building,” says Sunderland Cohen. Occuli Mundi is open to everyone.
In Zurich, the Ex Carta works will be joined by additional pieces from the Library’s own collection. Meanwhile, other items from the Sunderland Collection will feature in the exhibition Night Mapping, which opens at the Warburg Institute in London on 21 October.
- Fantastical Maps from Legendary Stories, Zentralbibliothek Zürich, 4 September-5 Decemeber
