Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Richard Miller on Maps and Authors

Harvard's Civil War: The History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry author Richard J. Miller made the following comment about my earlier post praising the quantity and quality of the maps in his book.

"I must add an acknowledgement--that my thinking about maps as well as that of my publisher (UPNE) was substantially influenced by the input of our mapmaker, Blake Magner. Magner's matching of the text with known infantry positions saved me from several horrific errors. I mention this not only out of gratitude but also to draw attention to a simple truth--creating effective Civil War battle narratives must be a collaboration between both authors and mapmakers."

I'll toast to that.

2 comments:

  1. Drew,

    Having had Blake do the maps for five of my books, I echo the sentiment. When we were doing my Trevilian Station book, Blake and I actually spent two days on the battlefield so we could hash everything out. Consequently, those maps were the most accurate ones of those actions ever done. His maps have been a real asset to my work, and he will be doing the maps for my bio of Ulric Dahlgren.

    Eric

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eric,
    Sounds like a very nice partnership. It is good to see authors publicly show appreciation for his contributions too!

    Drew

    ReplyDelete

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