Some of the most popular literary maps were featured on Dell’s “mapbacks.” In the 1940s and 1950s, these handsome paperbacks carried a map of the story on the back cover, presumably to help the reader to follow the action. Most of them were mysteries, but there were some interesting exceptions. Here’s the map for Dashiell Hammett’s Nightmare Town (1948).

The map for The Man Who Didn’t Exist, by Geoffrey Homes (1944), took a different approach, showing the interior of a single house.

Both of these showed fictional locations. Brett Halliday’s Counterfeit Wife (1949), however, took place in Miami, so the map showed the real Miami, with fictional locations indicated by numbers.

I only hope all three approaches helped readers keep track of the often convoluted plots.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)