这些中古世纪和文艺复兴时期地图上的海怪，不论游在水里时激起的浪有多大、攻击船只，或者只是现形让人惊叹，都是这些地图中最让人目不转睛的元素，但是却从未有人好好的研究这些海怪。这样的主题不只显现了制图、艺术与动物插画历史的重要性，同时也让我们看到了地理历史奇妙的一面及西方对海洋的概念。此外，这些描绘在地图上的海怪，也让我们知道这些制图家在绘制这些地图时所使用的方法、其影响力及来源。作者在这本含有大量插图的书中，分析了10世纪至16世纪末在欧洲制作的地图中所出现的重要海怪。
好评
“[B]eautifully illustrated. . . . People interested in maps, cryptozoology, folklore, and arcane zoology and zoological history will want to check it out.”
(Scientific American)
“The book features striking images of maritime monsters taken from maps of the ocean made between the 10th and 16th centuries.”
(Boston Globe Brainiac Blog)
“Full of charming stories and cartographic detail, Chet Van Duzer’s book is an entertaining and rewarding book for general readers and a well-researched reference for scholars.”
(Alessandro Scafi Times Literary Supplement)
“In the large-format, hardcover that this thing is, it’s basically as near to the ultimate nerd-level coffee table book that you could ever want, and I love it for that.”
(Aidan Flax-Clark Lapham's Quarterly)
“[An] authoritative, wide-ranging study. . . . Sumptuously produced. . . . The author is an encyclopedic scholar of historical cartography, with a magisterial command of comparative knowledge and scrupulous attentiveness to detail.”
(Marina Warner New York Review of Books)
“Medieval and Renaissance map scholar, Chet Van Duzer, backed by the British Library as publisher, have teamed up to produce a spectacular new book, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, a topic, oddly enough, for which there is little by way of real precedent. This book will become the sea monster authority by default. Although this beautiful book is a product of academic quality, it is very readable and accessible and requires no prior knowledge.”
(BibliOdyssey)
“A truly charming book, and one that will turbocharge the imagination of anyone staring over the side of a boat at a bunch of waves that could hide just about anything.”
(Sam Llewellyn Marine Quarterly)
“Lavish. . . . The sea monsters depicted throughout Van Duzer’s beautifully illustrated British Library volume strike absolute wonder in the reader today, and the author provides valuable insight into what medieval and Renaissance viewers must have made of these sinewy, silly, horned, fanged, and fearsome creatures. . . . Van Duzer reminds scholars that it sometimes helps to let the eye wander to the margins, to get a different historical perspective of medieval perspectives of their surrounding seas. This critical analysis of a hitherto ignored cartographic trope adds much-needed depth to our understanding of medieval and later perceptions of the sea and its mysterious creatures.”
(Vicki Ellen Szabo, Western Carolina University Nautical Research Journal)
“An in-depth dissection of ancient maps and sea beasts from days past.”
(Andrew Belonsky Out)
"Duzer offers a sublime examination of the genealogy of individual sea monsters and the artistic techniques of placing them on maps. . . . The author and the British Library both deserve great praise for creating such a visually stunning work."
(Historical Geography)
关于作者
Chet Van Duzer 在加州的史丹佛出生，他撰写制图的历史，以及制图家用做参考来源的作品的历史，包括地理文本、旅游叙述、图画书。他得过许多研究奖学金，包括国会图书馆、普林斯顿、John Carter Brown 图书馆、亨廷顿图书馆、及密西根大学克来门斯图书馆的奖学金。他去年出版了一本地图书，The World for a King，书讯请见：http://www.peonyrights.com/jiantishuji/lishi/2016/0805/1970.html
