Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2004 Issue
American Cartography From<br>William Reese
Lake Erie practically borders Florida in the Hennepin Map
There is some early Texas history, and a foldout map, in Texas. Observations, Historical, Geographical and Descriptive, in a Series of Letters, Written during a Visit to Austin's Colony...in the Autumn of 1831. The writer was Mary Austin Holley, a cousin of Texas founder Stephen F. Austin. The book is dedicated to him, though her cousin was not yet the celebrity he would become. She describes Texas as "very like a dream or youthful vision realized." Very positive sentiments for someone who lived there before air conditioning. Item 68. $15,000.
As long as we're visiting the Lone Star State, here are a couple more. William Kennedy published Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas back when it still was the Republic of Texas (1841). It describes Texas' geography and natural features along with its history up to the early days of the Republic. This book was sufficiently appreciated by Texans that the Texas Congress passed a resolution of thanks. Kennedy would go on to serve as British consul in Galveston and would encourage European migration. Item 86. $20,000.
A less positive view of Texas comes from N. Doran Maillard in The History of the Republic of Texas, from the Discovery of the Country to the Present Time..., the "present time" being 1842. The book describes Texas as "a country filled with habitual liars, drunkards, blasphemers, and slanderers, sanguinary gamesters and cold-blooded assassins and more to the same effect..." As a Texan, I can tell you we haven't changed. Item 100. $8,500.
Item 66 is a rare 1689 German (Nuremberg) version of Father Louis Hennepin's map of the interior of the American continent. The Great Lakes were imagined much greater than they turned out to be, and the lower Mississippi (the upper is well-illustrated) is just a dotted line, as if it were yet to be constructed. Lake Erie extends so far south that it would have been just a day trip for Detroiters to go to Florida to escape the winter's cold. Still, it's not bad for someone who traveled in the days before you could pick up a road map at every stop. $35,000.
The first American atlas was published by Mathew Carey in 1795. One version contained just American maps, but item 20 is his General Atlas for Carey's Edition of Guthrie's Geography Improved..., which also covered the rest of the world. Twenty-three of the forty-five maps (one is missing from this copy) covered America. Included are individual maps of the states, such as there were in 1796, other areas not yet states, plus eighteen maps of Europe and scattered others of the remaining regions of the globe. $18,500.
"Lewis and Clark" (technically, Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent...) includes a large folding map of the American Northwest created from that pioneering expedition. The book is the official and detailed description of the trip whose 200th anniversary we now celebrate. Item 94 is the first British edition, published the same year as the first American. $39,500.
