The London Atlas of Universal Geography (1834 First Issue)

A$22,000 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books

The first issue of Arrowsmith’s great Victorian atlas, regarded as among the great 19th-century atlases. Complete with its listed fifty maps and with the three early sheets devoted to Australia. John Arrowsmith (1790–1873) inherited the family’s map-publishing house and, from 1832, issued the plates of this atlas as the London Atlas of Universal Geography . It reached its first complete form in 1834 with fifty maps. The scheme runs from the ancient world and Mercator’s projection through the countries of Europe to Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. The plates were the standard British general atlas of their day and were revised, supplemented and reissued for decades. Francis Herbert’s study of its bibliography found its issues so fluid that title-page dates give only a rough guide to what a copy contains. Three sheets are of particular interest to Australian collectors: Discoveries in Australia , Western Australia and Van Diemen’s Land . The Western Australia sheet, dated May 1833, maps the young Swan River settlement and was a late addition to the atlas. Later issues added many more Australian plates, so a copy with just these three preserves the atlas as it first appeared. It is also free of the Texas map, which was not published until 1841. The full list of maps is as follows: World, as known to the Ancients World, on Mercator's Projection Europe, general map England Wales, divided into Counties England Wales Scotland Ireland Sweden Norway Denmark, with a suppleme

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.