Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
![[Attributed to James Gillray (1756-1815)] / Published by W. Humphrey (1742?-before 1815), The TIMES, Anno 1783. No. 227 Strand, London, April 14th 1783.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BRM3768-Gillray-The-Times-1783_lowres-scaled-e1614986180118-150x150.jpg)
A scarce and entertaining James Gillray political cartoon skewering Great Britain’s loss of her American colonies. At the time of the print’s publication in April 1783, the American Revolutionary War was essentially over: On January 20 Great Britain, the United States, France and Spain signed the provisional treaty of peace, ending hostilities and recognizing American […]
![[A collection of six Acts of Parliament, including important legislation responding to the end of the American Revolution.] London: Charles Eyre and William Strahan, 1783.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/BRM2413-Parliamentary-Acts-1783_lowres-scaled-e1579115353545-150x150.jpg)
Six 1783 Acts of Parliament, each revealing aspects of Great Britain’s adjustment to the new reality after the end of the American Revolution, including opening and facilitating trade with the United States, continued funding of certain military units in America, and attempts to provide reparations to Loyalists who had suffered losses of property. Printed in […]
![John Norman, THE AMERICAN PILOT CONTAINING THE NAVIGATION of the Sea Coast of NORTH AMERICA, from the Streights of Belle-Isle to Cayenne. Including the Island and Banks of Newfoundland, the West-India Islands, and all the islands on the coast. Boston: Printed and Sold by Wm. Norman at his office No. 75 Newbury Street[,] MDCCXCIIII.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/BRM2788-Norman-American-Pilot_3-e1562353527949-150x150.jpg)
The 1794 edition of John and William Norman’s famed American Pilot, including important charts of Nantucket by Pinkham and of the Carolinas by Dunbibin. One of the first atlases to be published in the United States, and only the third complete copy on the market since the Streeter sale in the mid 1960s. Background Good […]
A monumental wall map of the United States by Osgood Carleton, much enlarged and greatly updated to reflect political developments and advances in geographic knowledge. A great rarity, known in only 10 or 11 examples, most in American institutions. The map Carleton’s first attempt at a wall map of the country appeared in 1791 as […]
An early and important guide to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers by Zadock Cramer, including no fewer than 28 maps. “[O]ne of the most useful guide-books ever published and the detailed descriptions, revised from time to time, make it especially useful to the historical student today.” (Solon Buck, Travel and Description 1765-1865, p. 9) This […]
![Shelton & Kensett / Engraved by A[mos] Doolittle New Haven & T[homas] Kensett Cheshire, AN IMPROVED MAP of the United States BY Shelton & Kensett. Cheshire, Conn., Nov. 8, 1813.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BRM3757-Shelton_Kensett-Improved-United-States-1813_lowres-scaled-e1614985766662-150x150.jpg)
A rare and decorative map of the United States, with appealing pictorial vignettes celebrating American naval victories in the War of 1812. The Improved Map of the United States depicts the eastern half of the nation, including much of the recently-obtained Louisiana Territory, as well as parts of British Canada and Spanish-owned Florida. The nation’s rapid territorial development is indicated by […]
![Engraved by G[eorge] W. Boynton / [Printed by Joseph Willard Tuttle], A MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THE LATEST SURVEYS. WITH THE HEIGHT OF MOUNTAINS And length of the PRINCIPAL RIVERS. PATENT. Boston: [Tremont Print Company? Joseph Willard Tuttle?], 1841.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/BRM3270-Tuttle_Boynton-United-States-textile-1841_lowres-150x150.jpg)
A rare and decorative 1841 handkerchief map of the United States, one of only four early American cartographic textiles identified in Threads of History. Tuttle’s map depicts the United States to 24 degrees west of Washington, including parts of the territory just west of the Missouri River and of the Republic of Texas. The cartographic prototype […]
![Jerome B[onaparte] Holgate / G.W. Boynton, engraver, ATLAS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. ON A NOVEL PLAN. PRESENTING, AT ONE VIEW, THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY, FROM ITS DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME…. DESIGNED TO BE THE SAME TO HISTORY THAT MAPS ARE TO GEOGRAPHY. [Cambridge, Mass?]: 1842.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BRM3324-Holgate-Atlas-American-History-1842_title_lowres-e1560870213366-150x150.jpg)
Jerome Holgate’s Atlas of American History, an ambitious, interesting but unsuccessful attempt to compile and synthesize American history in graphic form. Inspired by the chronological charts of Joseph Priestley and Emmanuel de las Cases (writing pseudonymously as A. le Sage), some time in the 1830s author Jerome Holgate (1812-1893) conceived of an ambitious, five-part series […]
A richly-detailed broadside providing a cartographic overview at the outset of the Civil War, no doubt churned out in haste to meet demand for a reading public hungry for maps to put the disturbing war news in context. A railroad map of the country in three colors occupies the center of the broadside, flanked below […]
First American edition of Frederick Law Olmsted’s critical account of the Southern slave economy, published early in the Civil War and illustrated by a remarkable persuasive map of the Cotton Kingdom and Its Dependencies. Olmsted (1822-1903) was a man of extraordinary energy and intellectual scope, though illness had prevented him from ever gaining a college […]