The Neptune Monograph
The Neptune Monograph, the definitive briefing book issued to senior American officers in preparation for the D-Day landings, with the famous two-sheet maps of Omaha and Utah Beaches. In the lead-up to Operation Neptune, better known as the D-Day landings on the coast of Normandy, a flood of reports, maps, and coastal profiles were prepared […]
![[ Omaha Beach ] Commander Task Force 122, OMAHA BEACH-EAST (Colleville-sur-Mer) [:] FIRST BEACH OBSTACLE OVERPRINT [with:] OMAHA BEACH-WEST (Vierville-sur-Mer) [:] FIRST BEACH OBSTACLE OVERPRINT. NP, April 21, 1944 (with overprinting of information dated May 12).](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BRM3335-Omaha-Beach_West-May-1944_composite-e1559763236233-150x150.jpg)
Rare pair of planning maps for the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach
A rare and remarkable pair of Second World War planning maps depicting the Normandy coast at Colleville-sur-Mer and Vierville-sur-Mer, better known today simply as Omaha Beach. Issued less than a month before D-Day and bearing the ultra-secret “BIGOT” classification. “But nothing was more secret—or more vital to Operation Neptune—than the mosaic of Allied intelligence reports […]
![[ Royal African Company ] The British Interest on the Coast of Africa Consider’d, with the Interest of other Europeans, and the Politicks they used for Carrying on that Trade. [London: Royal African Company, ca. 1708.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BRM3294-RAC-broadsides_British-Interest-on-Coast-of-Africa_lowres-e1559316088989-150x150.jpg)
The Royal African Company fights for a monopoly on the slave trade (1 of 2)
An exceptionally rare 1708 broadside arguing for the restoration of the Royal African Company monopoly on the slave trade, with substantial reference to the central role of slavery to the economy of Britain’s American “plantations.” Written with a Colonial audience in mind, with copies sent to the Caribbean and Virginia. Background Chartered by Charles II in […]
The Royal African Company fights for a monopoly on the slave trade (2 of 2)
An exceptionally rare 1708 broadside arguing for the restoration of the Royal African Company’s monopoly on the slave trade with substantial reference to the central role of slavery to the economy of Britain’s American “plantations.” Written with a Colonial audience in mind, with copies sent to the Caribbean and Virginia. Background Chartered by Charles II in […]
![The African Companies Considerations on the Late Act of Parliament for Settling the Trade to AFRICA, Answer’d Paragraph by Paragraph. [London, 1708.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BRM3294-RAC-broadsides_African-Companies-Considerations_lowres-e1559647996588-150x150.jpg)
Attacking the Royal African Company’s hold on the slave trade
An exceptionally rare broadside, ca. 1708-1709, refuting arguments put forward by the Royal African Company for the restoration of its monopoly on the African slave trade. With substantial reference to the central role of slavery to the economy of Britain’s American “plantations.” Background Chartered by Charles II in 1672 and headed by his brother the […]
![[Broadside] Manasseh Cutler et al. / Printed by S. Hall, State-Street, Boston, IN forming the annexed catalogue of diseases, particular pains have been taken to render it intelligible. Boston, Nov. 10, 1785.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BRM3298-American-Academy-morbidity-survey-1785_lowres-e1559340089256-150x150.jpg)
A remarkable 18th-century American demographic and mortality survey
A remarkable and extremely rare broadside developed in 1785 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for a remarkably ambitious demographic and mortality survey of Massachusetts towns. Background The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was (and is) an honorary society chartered in 1780 by the Massachusetts General Court with the broad mission, “to […]
![P. Russell / H.C. Southwick, THE LINES ON THIS SHEET, Were composed by P. RUSSELL, while lying in IRONS, in the Moro Castle, who has been prevented from obtaining a LIVELIHOOD in the ordinary pursuits of Life, by WOUNDS received in BATTLE. New York, [1808-1820?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/brm1210-the-lines-on-this-sheet-ca-1810-e1559649273869-150x150.jpg)
A sailor’s woeful tale on a striking illustrated broadside
A remarkable and unrecorded record of an American sailor’s adventures during the Napoleonic Wars. The broadside tells the tale of one P. Russell, a sailor from Merrimac, New Hampshire who-if his tale is to be believed-suffered an incredible run of bad luck while in the merchant service. Within the space of a few years he was […]
![JOHNNY WITH HIS FRONT AND REAR GUARD. A Dialogue on the subject of the present War… [on sheet with:] BONA AND HIS LIFE GUARD. Father Abaddon… delivering a council of war to Napoleon… NP, ND, but American ca. 1808-1812.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BRM3255-Johnny-with-His-Rear-Guard_lowres-150x150.jpg)
A bizarre and spectacular broadside from the run-up to the War of 1812
A spectacular rarity from the run-up to the War of 1812, being two broadsides printed on a single sheet, one attacking Britain and the other Napoleon and both surmounted with large, bizarre and crudely-powerful woodcuts. During these years American relations with Britain and France were fraught in the extreme. Locked in conflict, the two European […]
![[Broadside] A. B. Lindsley, U. S. Agent & G. M’Dougall, Auctioneer, $13,000 INDIAN GOODS At Auction. WILL be sold at Auction at the Council-House in the city of Detroit…. Detroit, Dec. 11, 1822.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BRM3338-13000-Indian-Goods-at-Auction-1822-e1559329146853-150x150.jpg)
The end of the United States Indian factory system… and an unrecorded early Detroit imprint
Unrecorded broadside, printed in Detroit, announcing the sale at auction of trade goods remaining from the Federal Government-operated factory stores at Chicago and Green Bay. The sale took place in Detroit on December 18, 1822, following the termination by the United States Congress of the factory system for trading with the Native Americans. The end […]
![George S. Harris, Land Commissioner, H. & St. Jo. R. R., Hannibal, Mo. / Matthews & Warren, Commercial Advertiser Printing House, Buffalo, MISSOURI IS FREE! FARMS AND HOMES IN NORTHERN MISSOURI! Hannibal AND St. Joseph R.R. OFFERS FOR SALE NEARLY 500,000 ACRES OF THE BEST PRAIRIE, TIMBER AND COAL LANDS IN THE WEST! NP, ND [but ca. 1866-68].](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BRM3214-Hannibal-St-Joseph_lowres-e1547676757544-150x150.jpg)
Spectacular chromolithographic broadside promoting the Northern Missouri lands of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad
A rare, vibrantly-colored, and frankly, spectacular broadside promoting the sale of Missouri lands owned by the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. The Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad was formed in 1846, at a meeting in the Hannibal, Missouri law office of Mark Twain’s father John Marshall Clemens. Construction began in 1851, and when completed in […]
Extremely rare California Gold Rush edition of Fremont’s epochal map of the West
An extremely rare California Gold Rush edition of the Fremont-PreussMap of Oregon and Upper California, widely regarded as the most important and influential mid 19th-century map of the American West. One of the very rarest of the California Gold Rush maps, not noted by Wheat. The map was a towering accomplishment, which re-wrote the mapping […]
“One of the best illustrations of ante-bellum Texas and New Mexico” (Reese)
The first edition of a remarkable, separately-issued military map of Texas and the eastern part of New Mexico. This is one of several regional maps of the Western United States prepared by the Bureau of Topographical Engineers prior to the Civil War. They were not published per se but rather printed in very small numbers […]
Attractive Lamar County, Texas manuscript survey by a family patriarch
An interesting and most decorative survey of lands in Lamar County, Texas by the hand of the patriarch of a family, in which land bequests to various family members are laid out and precisely described. Best as I can glean from census records, John Onstott (1802-1874) of North Carolina and Mary Polly Wood (1806-1879) of South […]
Watercolor view of the future Fort Apache Arizona Territory
A fine 1876 watercolor view of Camp Apache (later Fort Apache), Arizona Territory. Though somewhat naïve in execution, the view has a wonderfully evocative quality while providing one of the most detailed contemporary images of this storied U.S. Army outpost, set at a flashpoint of the decades-long Apache Wars. The view depicts Camp Apache against […]
![[ Patillo Higgins ] / Nelson & White, Engineers and Architects, RAILROAD MAP OF TEXAS, LOUISIANA AND PART OF MISSISSIPPI. HIGGINS STANDARD OIL COMPANY. L’TD. CAPITAL STOCK $10,000,000. [Beaumont: Higgins Standard Oil Company,] Nov. 1901 [but probably 1902.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BRM3292-Higgins-Standard-Oil-1902_lowres-e1558105495923-150x150.jpg)
Patillo Higgins promotes the Higgins Standard Oil Company
An extraordinarily rare promotional map published by Patillo Higgins, the Father of Texas Oil, just months after the gusher at Spindletop transformed the global oil industry. Born in Sabine Pass, Texas in 1863 but spending most of his life in Beaumont, Higgins’ early years were marked among other things by violent racism and the killing […]
Extremely rare 1902 promotional map of Harris County Texas
A separately-issued, detailed and extremely rare promotional map of Harris County Texas, published at a transitional moment in the region’s history. The map was published in the immediate aftermath of two epochal events in the history of southeast Texas: the catastrophic Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901, which […]
Colossal and unrecorded wall map of Dallas, Texas
A colossal and unrecorded wall map of Dallas Texas, issued at a seminal moment in the development of the modern city. Dallas was one of the great American boom towns of the late 19th century, developing rapidly from a small frontier outpost into Texas’ most dynamic city. This map was issued in 1911, shortly after […]