William Reese Company Rare Books, Americana, Literature & Pictorial Americana 409 Temple Street New Haven, Connecticut 06511 203 / 789 · 8081 fax: 203 / 865 · 7653 e-mail:
[email protected] web: www.reeseco.com Click on blue links to view complete Bulletin 21: American Cartography descriptions of the items and additional images where applicable. A Landmark American Map, Printed by Benjamin Franklin 1. Evans, Lewis: GEOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND MECHANICAL ESSAYS. THE FIRST, CONTAINING AN ANALYSIS OF A GENERAL MAP OF THE MIDDLE BRITISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1755. Folding handcolored engraved map, 20¾ x 27¼ inches. Map backed on linen. Text: iv, 32pp. Quarto. Full tan polished tree calf by Riviere, red morocco label, a.e.g. Scattered light foxing. Very good. One of the most important maps of the British colonies done prior to that time, and its publication was a milestone in the development of Independence, a landmark in American cartography and an impor- printing arts in the colonial period”—Schwartz & Ehrenberg. tant Franklin printing. “The map is considered by historians to be the Evans’ map, which drew from his original surveys and Fry and Jef- most ambitious performance of its kind undertaken in America up to ferson’s 1753 map of Virginia, acknowledges French claims to all lands northwest of St. Lawrence Fort, resulting in criticism from New York. description of the Ohio country, and gives a good description of Despite the controversy, Evans’s work was very popular (there were the Carolina back country. The map was the authority for settling eighteen editions between 1755 and 1814), and was famously used by boundary disputes in the region.