Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in rare, important and unusual American maps and prints
A fascinating outsider’s view of the people, culture and natural attractions of the young United States, as seen through the eyes of a French émigré. Includes folding maps of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, which are the earliest separate maps of the islands. Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur (1735-1813) was born to a minor noble family […]
![[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 […]
![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 […]
William Faden’s important and extremely long-lived map of the United States, with great interior detail reflecting the territorial development and geopolitical situation of the early Republic. Among other things, this is the first state to depict the newly-acquired Louisiana Territory. The map depicts North America as far west as the Missouri River watershed and north […]
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 […]
![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 printed on pongee silk, 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 […]
![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 […]
![[After Edward Wallis] / Augustus Kollner (lithographer) / Thomas Sinclair (printer), NATIONAL GAME of the STAR SPANGLED BANNER or Geographical & Historical TOURIST through the UNITED STATES & CANADA. Philadelphia: L. I. Cohen & Co, 1844.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/BRM4208-Cohen-Game-Star-Spangled-Banner-1844_board_lowres-150x150.jpg)
One of the earliest published American cartographic games and one of the earliest American pictorial maps, based on one of the same title published in London by Edward Wallis. This fine pictorial map covers the eastern United States and Canada, the limits as then existed, from the northern shore of Lake Superior to the tip […]
![E[phraim] Gilman, Draftsman, / P. S. Duval’s Lithy. Philada., [Untitled map of the United States.] Washington, D.C., 1848.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/BRM4143-Gilman-United-States-1848_lowres-scaled-e1661278654687-150x150.jpg)
A fascinating map of the United States prepared in late 1848 to accompany President James Polk’s final annual message to Congress. The map was drawn on short notice by Ephraim Gilman, at the time the Principal Draftsman of the General Land Office. Gilman’s map depicts the United States as a trans-continental power, a status achieved […]
The 1853 first edition of an impressive but controversial geological map of the United States by the well-traveled Jules Marcou. Jules Marcou (1824-1898) trained first as a mathematician but in his early twenties transferred his interest and talents to geology. His natural talents came to the attention of Louis Agassiz and others, and in 1845—at […]