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 lovely old-color example of one of the earliest maps to name the United States, indicate its borders per the Treaty of Paris, and depict the Stars and Stripes. Per the subtitle, Brion de la Tour compiled the map from various English maps and other sources, as well as the boundaries set by the Treaty […]
![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 […]
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 […]
Basil Hall (1788-1844) was a British naval officer, traveler and writer. After retiring from the Navy and marrying, he traveled in the United States from 1827-8. His objective “was to see things with my own eyes, in order to ascertain, by personal inspection, how far the sentiments prevalent in England with respect to that country […]
![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-1841-150x150.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 great rarity of thematic mapmaking: a Charles Joseph Minard “flow map” tracking the impact of the American Civil War on the global cotton trade. Minard was one of the great 19th-century innovators in what Edward Tufte has called the “visual display of quantitative information.” Over the course of a quarter century he produced dozens of […]
![[ Election of 1872 ] Thomas A. Davies / Smart Sc[ulpsit?], WAR! WAR! WAR! TO THE KNIFE ON POLITICAL CORRUPTION. [:] POLITICAL SMASH-UP. Washington, 1872.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BRM3343-Political-Smash-Up_lowres-e1560873777631-150x150.jpg)
A rare and astonishingly complex cartoon attacking American political corruption during the Election of 1872. No names are named, but the villainous “Big Politician” is surely a stand in for Boss Tweed, the Grant Administration, or more likely both. This is one of three or four cartoons produced in 1872 by Thomas Albert Davies, a […]
An early and spectacular example of American pictorial mapping, Rambles through Our Country is a simple educational game requiring players to complete a “grand tour” of the United States. The game is played on a board featuring a spectacular chromolithographic map of the United States. The map bears 200 numbered stations beginning with Hartford—where the […]