A Gothic Map of the World

The Surrealists in the 1920s produced a map of the world showing lands and nations not as they were geographically, but according to how they inspired Surrealist ideas: so Europe virtually disappeared and Papua New Guinea was as big as the whole of North America. We've done something similar here. Whereas the monks of the Middle Ages put Jerusalem at the centre of the world, in our Gothic world Venice is at the middle ...
What is this fool on about?
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The great burned library; gateway to lost worlds; city of mysteries and magic Cemeteries, underground chambers, Dr Jekyll, ghosts and puritans. Round the stair wi' Burke an' Hare! Layer on layer of corpses, cramped lanes, Jack the Ripper, Doré; fog, fog, fog Castles, black forests, a dark artery pulsing into Europe's heart
Alexandria Edinburgh London The Rhine
Landscape of drama and fear for 18th-century gentlemen poets Unimaginable antiquity, strange cults, cruel pharoahs, tomb robbers and mummies Lewis's The Monk, mysterious monasteries Here Be Vampires
The Alps Egypt Madrid Romania
Lost tribes, wierd gods, monstrous beasts lurking in the rainforest An entire haunted landscape of ruins, headless ghosts, spectral beings, rather graphic placenames, and the birthplace of properly Gothic sensibility in its writers and artists From the Day of the Dead to Sergio Leoni Dining with the Borgias? For the first time, we assume
The Amazon
England Mexico Rome
Not much to be honest, apart from the South (lynchings, scent of magnolia, Faulkner, Poe and doom) and New England (Hawthorne, witches at Salem, Sleepy Hollow) The Coptic Church is pretty wierd, isn't it? Oh, and the Prester John legends as well Gotham, if you like; not so Gothic since about 1935 Stretches to the east apparently without end until you get to the Mongol Hordes
America
Ethiopia New York Russia
An utter blank apart from strange goings-on at Hanging Rock The Medici knew all about art and death 'The murmurs of the fallen creeds, like winds among the wind-shaken reeds, along the banks of holy Nile' Wrap up warm, we're off to the Gulag
Australia
Florence The Nile Siberia
Gaudi - bizarre buildings looking as though they've been grown from bones, slime, and rotting veg You may run into Baron Samedi at the crossroads Lots of EuroGoths here. We're told. Superstition, bullfights, Goya, Valdes Leal, civil war: Viva la Muerte!
Barcelona
Haiti Norway Spain
A Black Hole. Thuggees, Kali Ma, and murder cults Lush, temples in the wet forest, twenty-armed goddesses being dangerous, filthy holy men We do not recognise the state of Turkey, but think of the Sultan reclining on perfumed cushions, giving orders to the Bashi Bazouks to despatch another few hundred Greek peasants Does anyone know what lies in the mountain snows? The lamas aren't telling
Calcutta
India Ottoman Empire Tibet
Torture Gardens and exquisite means of death Plots, murders, delicate assassinations, Macchiavelli, Dante, Salvator Rosa, and good light for drawing Forbidden learning, arcane rites, Philip Pullman, black arts and Anglo-Catholicism Don't Look Know, the Council of Ten, the Bridge of Sighs, funereal gondolas slipping down canals - the City of Death above all others
China
Italy Oxford Venice
Heart of Darkness, the journey to the human race's primitive core (racist, perhaps, but don't blame Conrad, or me) Anime, manga, red-black-white colour schemes; will it be a beheading, sir? Notre Dame de ... Europe's own little glimpse of what Hell must be like
The Congo
Japan Paris Vesuvius
Gateway to the Orient, meetingplace of jarring cultures, domes, minnarets, opium and white slavers Actually east of Krakatoa, you know The Incas were more bloodthirsty than used to be thought Abbey on the hilltop, Goths in the pub
Constantinople
Java Peru Whitby
The Oracle breathes in those volcanic fumes, cackles, and prophesies your doom Three great religions jostling in the streets, and Christian monks squabbling over roofspace Ah, rose-red city half as old as time
Delphi
Jerusalem Petra
Industrial ruin, political tyranny, decay and decline - lots of (rather threatening) Goths The Temple of Amun - the statue waiting in its dark sanctuary over the waters A lunatic's fantasy assemblage, bouncy balls on the beach and Siouxsie on the terrace
East Germany Karnak Portmeirion
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