Uncut sheet of 17th-century geographic playing cards
A complete and uncut sheet of 17th-century geographic playing cards published in Paris by Pierre du Val likely for educational use. The game includes 52 cards arranged in the usual four suits, each dedicated to a continent: hearts to Europe, diamonds to Asia, spades to Africa, and clubs to the Americas. Each card features a […]
![Johann Wolfgang Muller, translator / [after Johann Wolfgang Muller and Johann Georg Klinger], JEU DE VOYAGE DES CINQ PARTIES DU MONDE [also titled:] VOYAGES aux cinq parties du monde ou JEU DE NATIONS du trois manieres. Nuremberg: George Klinger, 1807.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BRM3270-Klinger-Jeu-de-voyage-des-cinq-parties-du-monde_composite-e1553088162941-150x150.jpg)
A rare and elaborate ethnographic-geographic card game
An elaborate, delightful and very rare boxed set containing the components for three geographic games. This clever and compact little set is the most intricate early geographical game set I have encountered. It includes dozens of playing cards, board, instructions and other materials required for no fewer than three geographic games of varying levels of […]
![Members of the Craig Family of Kentucky, [Five manuscript “school” maps, including maps of the World, United States, Kentucky, South America and Africa.] Various places, ca. 1807-1814.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BRM2822-Craig-maps_group-FINAL_lowres-e1553183525423-150x150.jpg)
Five early 19th-century Kentucky school maps, drawn by members of one family
An appealing and varied group of ink-and-watercolor school maps from the early years of the 19th century, remarkable for their Kentucky origins, interesting subject matter, pleasing design, relatively good condition, and superb provenance. The group includes a double-hemisphere map of the world, a map of the United States copied from Shelton & Kensett’s 1813 Improved Map […]
Finely-rendered schoolgirl map of the United States
A finely-rendered schoolgirl map of the United States, including much detail for the trans-Mississippi West. Ms. Stearns’ map depicts the United States as far west as the Texas panhandle and upper reaches of the Missouri River, though the Florida peninsula is cut off just south of St. Augustine. The map is very detailed, showing state […]
A remarkable geographic chart, with huge moveable volvelles
A remarkable, even somewhat bizarre, mid-19thcentury geopolitical educational chart by William Bicknell, Jr. of Hartford, Maine. Bicknell (ca. 1804-1887) was a long-time educator in the Hartford, Maine school district. Accord to the Osher Map Library, he “wrote extensively on a variety of political topics, supporting women’s suffrage and opposing the death penalty.” For a time […]
![Clara O’Neil, [Hand-drawn physical atlas including 27 maps and plans and 18 astronomical and geological diagrams.] St. Leonards-on-Sea (Hastings), East Sussex, England, 1876.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/BRM3099-ONeil-schoolgirl-atlas_binding-2-150x150.jpg)
Superb manuscript physical atlas, by a British convent student
An especially lovely 19th-century manuscript physical atlas by a young woman at an English convent school, strikingly detailed and rendered with precision and sensitivity in the choice of watercolors. In the 19th century map copying was an important educational method at the primary level, seen as valuable both for the development of geographic knowledge as well […]
Geographic game by Leon Saussine, with vibrant chromolithography and in superb condition
A rare early 20th-century geographic-educational game by prolific publisher Leon Saussine, featuring a profusion of chromolithographic maps and other images, all in superlative condition. Simultaneously delightful yet offensive to modern sensibilities, revelatory as it is of traditional Euro-centric conceptions of racial superiority. The game consists of twelve numbered playing boards, two for each inhabited continent […]
16-foot chronological banner based on Larkin’s “Dispensational Truth”
A mammoth and striking evangelical chronology, mapping the spiritual development of Christianity as predicted in Revelations to the historical development of the Christian Church. Based on the work of Dispensationalist minister Clarence Larkin, and with a crude power that renders it a remarkable piece of American folk and religious art. Clarence Larkin and Dispensationalism Dispensationalist […]
![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 […]
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 […]
The Public Domain Squandered!
Rare political broadside, setting forth the Democratic Party Platform of 1884 and arguing that the “Public Domain Has Been Squandered” by Federal land grants to the railroads. The broadside was published by the Democratic Party during the 1884 presidential race between Grover Cleveland and James Blaine. The map shows vast swaths of territory from the […]
![[Mount Vernon] General George Washington / Arthur Young, Esq. F.R.S. (editor) / printed by B. McMillan, LETTERS FROM HIS EXCELLENCY GEORGE WASHINGTON, TO ARTHUR YOUNG, ESQ. F.R.S. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS HUSBANDRY, WITH A MAP OF HIS FARM… London: W. J. and J. Richardson and J. Hatchard, 1801.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BRM3269-Letters-General-Washington-1801_map-and-title-e1552229704175-150x150.jpg)
With George Washington’s own map of Mount Vernon
A fascinating volume of correspondence between George Washington and a prominent English agronomist, illustrated by Washington’s own map of his Mount Vernon estate. Following his retirement from active service in 1783, Washington devoted much of his time to the maintenance and improvement of his vast estate of Mount Vernon. Soon thereafter he began an extensive […]
![Zacharias Landteck, ZACHARIAS LANDTECKS Neu inventierte GEOGRAPHISHE UNIVERSAL-ZEIG UND SCHLAG-UHR[:] ZACHARIAS LANDTECKS Nieuw Uytgevonde WEERELD-BEELDIGH WYS EN SLAG WERK. [Nüremburg: Johann Baptist Homann, ca. 1705?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BRM3118-Landteck-Schlag-Uhr_lowres-150x150.jpg)
Rare image of a universal clock, which may—or may not—have been invented by Homann
An interesting, attractive and very rare print depicting a remarkable universal clock purportedly developed by Nuremburg clock- and watchmaker Zacharias Landteck (1670-1740). Not to be confused with the vastly more common version attributing the clock to map- and instrument maker Johann Baptist Homann. The print depicts one face of Landteck’s clock, flanked left and right […]
![The Ladies’ Social Circle OF WEST ACTON, WILL HOLD A LEVEE AND FAIR FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE UNIVERSALIST SOCITY… South Acton, Mass.: Acton Patriot Press, [1875].](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BRM1922-Acton-Ladies-Social-Circle-1875-150x150.jpg)
The Ladies Social Circle holds a benefit for the Universalists of West Acton
A very large, handsome and rare broadside promoting an 1875 “levee and fair” to benefit the Universalist Society of West Acton, Massachusetts. The West Acton parish of the Universalist Society of West Acton was established in 1858 and constructed its own meeting house in 1868. In October 1875 the Reverend I. C. Knowlton was named […]