ABSTRACT
Novel readers seem to automatically process directions as they read but very few have stopped to consider what this activity actually involves. Getting oriented might seem simple enough, but just think about how quickly an unrecognizable street sign can throw people off track. There is no longer the assumption that spatial representations derive from a set of neutral and value-free literary conventions reflecting an innocent and timeless world-view. Locating the space of novels is an act of translation: street and place names become points on a map. Long before literary maps came on the scene, readers made do with literary guidebooks. When arriving in Lyme Regis for the first time in 1867, Alfred Tennyson informed his traveling companion that he had no interest in seeing where the Duke of Monmouth landed. Rather, so the story goes, he wanted to visit the spot where Louisa Musgrove fell unconscious.
