Colton's General Atlas, containing One Hundred and Seventy Steel Plate Maps and Plans.

£4,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Fifth edition of Colton’s world atlas, which was first published in 1856, and reprinted regularly thereafter. John Hutchins Colton (1800-1893) was one of the leading American cartographic publishers. This atlas provides an encyclopaedic and up-to-date description of the world, the maps accompanied by text - “descriptions, geographical, stastistical, and historical” - compiled by Richard S. Fisher. This atlas was published in 1859; in that year the failure of the Bolivian Government to pay a $25,000 bill for creating an atlas of that country forced Colton into bankruptcy, and the use of his plates passed to the partnership of Johnson and Browning. Reference: Phillips, Atlases, 827.

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