Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
A fine example of the very rare second state of J. B. Eliot’s map of the United States, with additional annotations in a contemporary hand. The first state of the map, issued in 1778, is believed to be the earliest printed map to name the “United States.” Eliot’s attractive map depicts the colonies from southern […]
![[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 […]
![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 […]
The first fascicle of Morse’s United States atlas, The Cerographic Atlas of the United States, issued in parts (fascicles) as a supplement to the New York Observer. Produced by an experimental process, the publisher’s plan to produce quickly the completed atlas were thwarted; the second part appeared only in 1843, and the completed atlas in […]
![Ephraim 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/BRM-Gilman-United-States-1848_lowres-scaled-e1586960503171-150x150.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 […]
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 […]