LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2008 Feb Grand Format Book & Manuscript #682  / 

56503

Anthony Finley New American Atlas

Currency:USD Category:Books / Antiquarian & Collectible Start Price:19,500.00 USD Estimated At:25,000.00 - 30,000.00 USD
Anthony Finley New American Atlas
<B>[Anthony Finley. </B></I><B><I>New American Atlas.</B></I></B></I><B> </B></I>Philadelphia: Published by Anthony Finley, n.d., 1826]. <BR>Scarce pocket issue of Anthony Finley's 1826 <I>New American Atlas.</B></I> Twelvemo (6 x 4.5 inches); map size approximately 17.25 x 21.5 inches). With fifteen numbered folding hand-colored engraved maps on fourteen sheets (the maps of "Florida and elevation of Mountains" and "West Indies" are on one sheet). The maps are dated 1825 and 1826 (the map of "Kentucky and Tennessee" is undated) and are drawn by D. H. Vance and engraved by J. H. Young. Each map features a statistical profile of the area it represents.<BR><BR>Publisher's wallet-style red roan binding. Complete with the original flap lined with green roan (usually lacking or restored). The flap is stamped in gilt: "New American Atlas/Sold by John Grigg/No 9 N. 4th St/Philadelphia." Issued without title, but with printed index leaf mounted on front pastedown and printed "Population of the Principal Cities and Towns in North and South America" leaf mounted on rear pastedown. Binding lightly rubbed. Some foxing and minor browning, minor edge wear, a few short tears where the maps are attached to the mounts, and a few short separations at folds. A few faint penciled ownership inscriptions, one dated 1827, and an early ink ownership inscription erased from front free endpaper, with "Lockport, N.Y." remaining. A remarkable copy of this scarce pocket atlas, with the maps generally clean and crisp.<BR><BR>This pocket atlas was issued by Finley the same year as his folio <I>A New American Atlas, Designed Principally to Illustrate the Geography of the United States of North America</B></I> (Philadelphia: 1826) and they are closely similar, except that the in the pocket issue the maps are printed on thinner paper than that used in the folio edition, so that they could be more easily folded to fit into the pocket-style format.<BR><BR>"Little is known about [Finley's] background, but he was probably born around 1790. Judging from contributors to his atlases, he apparently moved in the same Philadelphia circles of engravers and compilers as other contemporary publishers...His first publication, issued in 1824, is titled <I>A New General Atlas, Comprising a Complete Set of Maps, representing the Grand Divisions of the Globe, Together with the several Empires and States in the World</B></I>...Its ornate title page was designed and engraved by Joseph Perkins, who also prepared the title page illustration for Tanner's <I>New American Atlas. </B></I>Perkins also engraved, in a beautiful cursive hand, the table of contents for Finley's atlas. All of the atlas's sixty plates were engraved by Young & Delleker. The New General Atlas was favorably reviewed in the July 1824 issue of the North American Review...The 1834 edition of the <I>New General Atlas</B></I> was the last. Finley's 1826 <I>A New American Atlas Designed Principally to Illustrate the Geography of the United States of North America </B></I>appears to have been a one-time effort. Most of the atlas maps carry the credit 'Drawn by D. H. Vance,' and all were engraved by J. H. Young. The same plates, with dates and publisher's name changed, were used by S. Augustus Mitchell in 1831 for an atlas published under the same title as Finley's 1826 volume" (Walter Ristow, <I>American Maps & Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the 19th Century,</B></I> pp. 268-270).<BR><BR>Finley continued to publish "pocket maps of the United States, and of each state" for travellers until 1831, when he sold his map and atlas copyrights to S. Augustus Mitchell, who reissued this American Atlas only once, in 1831, but continued to issue the pocket maps, with updates, until about 1850.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Books & Catalogs (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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