Geographical Guide to a Man's Heart with Obstacles and Entrances Clearly Marked.
Geographical Guide to a Woman's Heart Emphasizing Points of Interest to the Romantic Traveler.
Geographical Guide to a Man's Heart with Obstacles and Entrances Clearly Marked.
Geographical Guide to a Woman's Heart Emphasizing Points of Interest to the Romantic Traveler.
2 maps, each 28 x 22 (centimeters, height x width)
Notes:
Two allegorical maps of romance, dense with contemporary stereotypical references. The Man's Heart, for example, is bordered by the Don't Fence Me In Fence and Impenetrable Wall of Ego, while the Woman's heart features the State of Security adjoining Love of Love Land. Harmon 2004, 52-53.
These maps derive from two Victorian images, attributed only to "A Lady" and published by the Kellogg Brothers of Connecticut. For "The Open Country of Woman’s Heart," see ID #2529 and the related commentary. The Victorian "Fortified Country of Man’s Heart" is "bristling with defenses intended to ward off attack" and largely "inhospitable to romance." Finlay 2012.
See also ID #2334, "Map of a Woman's Heart" (1887), advertising "Woman's Heart" brand chewing tobacco.
The collection includes a number of related maps; see Subject > Romance/Love/Marriage. Early allegorical maps of this kind were "more than oddities or simple curiosities," more than simply "reflections of contemporary views" they were "exemplary tools in the articulation of new attitudes, exposing controversial states of social awareness." Reitinger 1999, 106. See also Delaney 2012, 207-215.
