When a story is well-written, you can become so immersed while reading that it becomes your world. All your surroundings disappear and all that remains are the words on the page guiding you through the story. These words can be transformed into constellation-like diagrams. The first words of a story—and even every chapter—are unique in that they set the stage for what's to come.
Constellations were created from words of first sentences of each chapter in classic short stories to draw a paths based on word length and part of speech. The directions of lines were based on part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) and length is based on the length of the word. Star sizes are also based on word length. Constellations were hand-arranged in a loose clockwise pattern starting at the top with a faint highlight connecting each in the order chapters appeared in the story representing the cloud of the galaxy usually shown in vintage star charts.
More about how they were made »
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A Little Princess
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Around the World in Eighty Days
Dracula
Dubliners
Five Children and It
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Heidi
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Peter Pan
Robinson Crusoe
The Invisible Man
The Jungle Book
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The Phantom of the Opera
The Secret Garden
The Time Machine
The War of the Worlds
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Through the Looking Glass
All literature used is in the public domain and was retrieved from Project Gutenberg.
Press
- Beautiful Literary Star Charts Map Famous First Sentences, January 23, 2017, WIRED
- Il créé des cartes de constellations à partir d'incipit célèbres, January 25, 2017, ActuaLitté
- Artist Transforms Sentences From Classic Literature Into Constellations, January 25, 2017, Mental Floss
- Literary Constellations Transforms First Sentences Into Star Charts, January 26, 2017, Tor.com
- Our changing view of data - The Roundup, January 27, 2017, Barrachd
- Literary Constellations: Astronomy-Inspired Visualizations of the Opening Sentences of Beloved Books, January 30, 2017, Brain Pickings
- This Artist Turns Stories Into Constellations, And The Results Are Magical, January 30, 2017, Bustle
- Artist Nicholas Rougeux Creates Constellations Out Of Classic Literature, January 30, 2017, #AmReading
- Convertir la literatura mapas de las estrellas, February 9, 2017, La piedra de Sísifo
- Best of the visualisation web... January 2017, March 6, 2017, Visualising Data
- Literary Constellations: visualising the opening sentences of famous books, August 18, 2017, Nothingintherulebook
- Showcase, Longlist, and Shortlist, September 22, 2017, Information is Beautiful Awards 2017
- Your Favorite Novels, Reimagined as Constellations, January 29, 2018, Bookstr
- These ‘Literary Constellations’ Take the Opening Sentences of Classic Books and Turn Them into Astronomical Charts, Aug 20, 2018, Smith Journal
- Star charts gleaned from famed opening lines, December, 2018, Aesop
Published January 15, 2017
