London: "Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms", "1733" [but circa 1735]. Folio. (20 1/2 x 15 inches). Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very fine... More

London: "Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms", "1733" [but circa 1735]. Folio. (20 1/2 x 15 inches). Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very fine full contemporary hand-colouring (with twenty-two integral inset views and plans) on 15 double-page and 5 single-page sheets, with full contemporary hand-colouring, mounted on guards throughout, with the double-page key map by Toms, hand-coloured in outline. With the Contents leaf, laid in. Expertly bound to style in half 18th-century russia over original 18th- century coated paper-covered boards, spine gilt with red morocco spine label, modern blue morocco-backed cloth box, titled in gilt on the 'spine'. A monument to 18th-century American cartography: a highly attractive fully-coloured copy of the first large-scale map of North America, and the first printed map to show the thirteen colonies. Popple maps with full contemporary colour are exceedingly rare, we have handled only one other copy, and the only other comparable example to have appeared at auction in the past thirty years is the Siebert/Freilich copy. Popple produced this map under the auspices of the Lord Commissioners of Trade and Plantations to help settle disputes arising from the rival expansion of English, Spanish and French colonies. "France claimed not only Canada, but also territories drained by the Mississippi and it's tributaries - in practical terms, an area of half a continent" (Goss The Mapping Of North America p.122.) The present copy of Popple's map, with its full contemporary hand-colouring, would have been particularly useful in these disputes. Mark Babinski in his masterly monograph on this map notes that 'The typical coloring of fully colored copies ... is described best by a contemporary manuscript legend on the end-paper affixing the Key map to the binding in the King George III copy at the British Library: "Green - Indian Countrys. Red - English. Yellow - Spanish. Blue - French. Purple - Dutch." The careful demarcation of the disputed areas by colour would have made the identification of whether a particular location was in one or another 'zone' a great deal easier. Thus the colouring adds a whole new dimension to a map that is usually only seen in its uncoloured state, and perhaps suggests that the copies with full hand-colouring were originally produced for some as-yet-unrediscovered official use to do with the international land disputes of the time. Benjamin Franklin, on May 22, 1746, ordered two copies of this map, "one bound the other in sheets," for the Pennsylvania Assembly. It was the only map of sufficient size and grandeur available - and the map is on a grand scale: if actually assembled it would result in a rectangle over eight feet square. Its coverage extends from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland to about ten degrees west of Lake Superior, and from the Great Lakes to the north coast of South America. Several of the sections are illustrated with handsome pictorial insets, including views of New York City, Niagara Falls, Mexico City, and Quebec, and inset maps of Boston, Charles-Town, Providence, Bermuda, and a number of others. "Little is known of Henry Popple except that he came from a family whose members had served the Board of Trade and Plantations for three generations, a connection that must have been a factor in his undertaking the map, his only known cartographic work" (McCorkle America Emergent 21.) Babinski has made a detailed study of the issues and states of the Popple map. This copy is in Babinski's state 5: the imprint on sheet 20 reads "London Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms 1733", and sheet one includes the engraved figure "1" in the upper left corner just above the intersection of the two neat lines. The small format table of contents is not present, but according to Babinski this is not unusual, indeed it was the case with two thirds of the copies examined. The key map is in Babinski's state 1, with only Toms' name below the border at the bottom and no additional place names in the 17 small insets. This copy also notable for containing the very rare Contents leaf, titled "The Contents of each Sheet of the Twenty Plates of Mr. Popple's Map of America." We have handled only one other copy of the map complete with this ephemeral addition. Mark Babinski Henry Popple's 1733 map (New Jersey, 1998) (ref); Brown Early Maps of the Ohio Valley 14; cf. Cumming The Southeast in Early Maps 216, 217; Degrees of Latitude 24, state 4 (but with engraved number to sheet 1); E. McSherry Fowble Two Centuries of Prints in America 1680-1880 (1987), 6, 7; cf. John Goss The Mapping of North America (1990) 55 (key map only); Graff 3322; Howes P481, "b"; Lowery 337 & 338; McCorkle America Emergent 21; Phillips Maps p.569; Sabin 64140; Schwartz & Ehrenberg p.151; Streeter Sale 676; Stephenson & McKee Virginia in Maps, map II-18A-B. Less

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London: "Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms", "1733" [but circa 1735]. Folio. (20 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches). Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very... More

London: "Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms", "1733" [but circa 1735]. Folio. (20 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches). Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very fine full contemporary hand-colouring (with twenty-two integral inset views and plans) on 15 double-page and 5 single-page sheets, with full contemporary hand-colouring, mounted on guards throughout. (Without the table of contents leaf as usual, and without the double-page key map by Toms). Expertly bound to style in half 18th-century russia over original 18th-century marbled paper-covered boards, spine gilt with red morocco spine label, modern blue morocco-backed cloth box, titled in gilt. A monument to 18th-century American cartography: a highly attractive fully- coloured copy of the first large-scale map of North America, and the first printed map to show the thirteen colonies. Popple maps with full contemporary colour are exceedingly rare. Popple produced this map under the auspices of the Lord Commissioners of Trade and Plantations to help settle disputes arising from the rival expansion of English, Spanish and French colonies. "France claimed not only Canada, but also territories drained by the Mississippi and it's tributaries - in practical terms, an area of half a continent" (Goss The Mapping Of North America p.122.) The present copy of Popple's map, with its full contemporary hand-colouring, would have been particularly useful in these disputes. Mark Babinski in his masterly monograph on this map notes that 'The typical coloring of fully colored copies ... is described best by a contemporary manuscript legend on the end-paper affixing the Key map to the binding in the King George III copy at the British Library: "Green - Indian Countrys. Red - English. Yellow - Spanish. Blue - French. Purple - Dutch." The careful demarcation of the disputed areas by colour would have made the identification of whether a particular location was in one or another 'zone' a great deal easier. Thus the colouring adds a whole new dimension to a map that is usually only seen in its uncoloured state, and perhaps suggests that the copies with full hand-colouring were originally produced for some as-yet-unrediscovered official use to do with the international land disputes of the time. Benjamin Franklin, on May 22, 1746, ordered two copies of this map, "one bound the other in sheets," for the Pennsylvania Assembly. It was the only map of sufficient size and grandeur available - and the map is on a grand scale: if actually assembled it would result in a rectangle over eight feet square. Its coverage extends from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland to about ten degrees west of Lake Superior, and from the Great Lakes to the north coast of South America. Several of the sections are illustrated with handsome pictorial insets, including views of New York City, Niagara Falls, Mexico City, and Quebec, and inset maps of Boston, Charles-Town, Providence, Bermuda, and a number of others. "Little is known of Henry Popple except that he came from a family whose members had served the Board of Trade and Plantations for three generations, a connection that must have been a factor in his undertaking the map, his only known cartographic work" (McCorkle America Emergent 21.) Babinski has made a detailed study of the issues and states of the Popple map. This copy is in Babinski's state 6: the imprint on sheet 20 reads "London Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms 1733" (i.e. without R. W. Searle's name), sheet one includes the engraved figure "l" in the upper left corner just above the intersection of the two neat lines and engraved sheet numbers have been added to the upper right corners of each sheet. Mark Babinski Henry Popple's 1733 map (New Jersey, 1998) (ref); Brown Early Maps of the Ohio Valley 14; cf. Cumming The Southeast in Early Maps 216, 217; Degrees of Latitude 24, state 4 (but with engraved number to sheet 1); E. McSherry Fowble Two Centuries of Prints in America 1680-1880 (1987), 6, 7; cf. John Goss The Mapping of North America (1990) 55 (key map only); Graff 3322; Howes P481, "b"; Lowery 337 & 338; McCorkle America Emergent 21; Phillips Maps p.569; Sabin 64140; Schwartz & Ehrenberg p.151; Streeter Sale 676; Stephenson & McKee Virginia in Maps, map II-18A-B. Less

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Paris: Estienne Michallet, 1681.. [2],16,43,[1],18,[2],32,[4],20,14,8,16pp. including six plates and errata leaf, plus two folding maps (of three,... More

Paris: Estienne Michallet, 1681.. [2],16,43,[1],18,[2],32,[4],20,14,8,16pp. including six plates and errata leaf, plus two folding maps (of three, lacking the equipolar projection map, "Explication de la carte de la Decouverte de la Terre d'Ielmer") and three plates (two folding), with eleven engravings in the text. Contemporary calf, spine gilt, raised bands. Chipped at spine ends, a bit of wear along upper and lower portions of front hinge, bottom edge of rear board slightly worn. A few neat corrections in a contemporary hand. Tasman map and the two folding plates with closed tears along the bound-in edge, but with no loss. Small closed tear along one fold of the Mississippi map, but with no loss. Overall, a very good copy, lacking only the equipolar projection map. In a half morocco box. The very rare first edition of Thevenot's collection of travels, and an essential document in the exploration of the interior of North America. This is a very complex book bibliographically, and there are many variant issues, especially in the part of the work devoted to natural history discoveries of Swammerdam and others. Many copies lack some of the natural history components. Its importance and value, however, derive from the section and accompanying map devoted to the travels of Marquette and Joliet and the map showing the discoveries of Abel Tasman, and these are identical in both editions. The most notable aspect of Thevenot is that it contains the first publication of Father Marquette's relation of his discovery, with Joliet, of the upper Mississippi River and their exploration as far as the Arkansas River in 1673. This remarkable expedition established the basic structure of the Mississippi headwaters for the first time, and opened the way for the dominance of the French in the Mississippi Valley over the next century. Their account begins on May 17, 1673, when the party set out in two canoes from Mackinac. They reached the Mississippi via Green Bay and the Fox River on June 17, floated as far south as Arkansas, and returned north by way of the Illinois and Des Plaines rivers and the later site of Chicago. The accompanying map is a major landmark of American cartography, "Carte de la decouverte faite l'an 1673, dans l'Amerique Septentrionale." The map is the first to bear the word "Michigan," and shows the lake of that name and the Mississippi River from its headwaters to the sea. A figure appears in the center of the map, identified as "Manit8," representing an Indian god. The map appears here in its third state, as usual, with the date of 1673 in the title of the map. Burden convincingly asserts that the first and second states (known in only one copy each) were almost certainly proofs. This is one of the most important American frontier exploration narratives. Howes says: "The first edition of Thevenot's RECUEIL, while less rare than Le Clerq's PREMIER ETABLISSEMENT DE LA FOI, 1691, is of equal importance...." "The first printed representation of the Mississippi based on actual observation" - Streeter. The other sections of Thevenot's work are of considerable interest as well. The Tasman map is one of the first to show parts of the Australian coastline in detail, based on his 1644 voyage. It shows part of the coast of New Guinea, Tasmania, and much of the east coast of Australia, and is a basic work of Australian cartography. It is present here in its third issue, with the Tropic of Capricorn inserted and with the rhumblines. "In any state the map is a great rarity. It is one of the earliest charts devoted entirely to Australia, and is the first French map of Australia" - Davidson. There is also an account of explorations in polar regions by the Dutch in 1680, which is usually accompanied by a third map, an equipolar projection, which is lacking from this copy. The third exploration piece is an account of a trip overland from Russia to China in 1653. Finally, there is a discourse on navigation, and the natural history sections discussing the illustration of insects. A major work of Americana, with one of the landmark accounts and maps of the discovery of the Mississippi Valley. CHURCH 672. HARRISSE NOUVELLE FRANCE 147. SABIN 95332. WORLD ENCOMPASSED 211. STREETER SALE 101. SIEBERT SALE 659. HOWES T156, "c." EUROPEAN AMERICANA 681/141. BURDEN 540. CLEMENTS, 100 MICHIGAN RARITIES 4. GREENLY MICHIGAN 6. GRAFF 4122. JONES 320. TOOLEY, MAPPING OF AUSTRALIA AND ANTARCTICA, plate 92. Davidson, A BOOK COLLECTOR’S NOTES, pp.28-29. Less

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