Evans, Lewis:

$300,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

GEOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND MECHANICAL ESSAYS. THE FIRST, CONTAINING AN ANALYSIS OF A GENERAL MAP OF THE MIDDLE BRITISH COLONIES IN AMERICA; AND OF THE COUNTRY OF THE ... One of the most important maps of the British colonies produced prior to Independence, a landmark in American cartography, and an important Franklin printing. This is the first edition, first issue of the Lewis Evans map, with the first edition, second issue of the text. This is the Thomas W. Streeter copy, with his pencil notes on the bookseller's label affixed to the front wrapper, and his bookplate on the verso of the front wrapper. Lewis Evans' A General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America is the first map engraved in America to show the Ohio Country, and became "the prototype to most of the maps of North America during the next half century" (Stevens). The present copy exhibits beautiful contemporary hand-coloring. It shows the east coast of North America from Montreal and New England to the northern border of North Carolina, and includes the Ohio valley in the west. The Evans map appeared in 1755, the same year as John Mitchell's famous map, with Evans drawing from his original surveys and Fry and Jefferson's 1753 map of Virginia. Evans' map acknowledges French claims to all lands northwest of St. Lawrence Fort, resulting in criticism from New York, notably the New York Mercury. Produced on the eve of the French and Indian War, Evans' notes on French claims elicited

• Printing: first

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