A Gift to Canada Speed's 1662 Map of the Americas

Library and Archives Canada recently tweeted this:

In 1967, the British government gave a number of rare books to the National Library of Canada. This copy of a 1662 edition of John Speed’s A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World was among the items: https://t.co/uHDILRoWAC pic.twitter.com/WkGplkxXaS

— LibraryArchiveCanada (@LibraryArchives) July 3, 2018

It's a link to a fascinating map of the Americas from 1662. The link in the tweet above brings you to an image of the map which can be zoomed in on, to a point. The image is here:

 The map is fascinating. The known regions are packed with detail and there are place names that strike the modern viewer as strange. For example, Bermuda is listed as "now called the Summer Isles" and the south-west United States is listed as "New Granada".

The map also has such geographic oddities, such as the island of California, the connection between Greenland and the mainland of the continent, and the strange shape of Hudson's Bay, to name a few. The map also has, what seems to me, to be a strange omission. Though the map notes the location of "Canada" there is no mention of "New France". Perhaps that name was not commonly used, but there's nothing to even indicate that Canada was a French possession.

The map itself has some beautiful detail. The top of the border has miniature plans of important cities such as Mexico and Cartagena.

 









The sides of the map are bordered by miniatures of native peoples of the various places shown on the map. See, for example, this Greenlander and Virginian.

Doing a bit of digging, I came across this website that provides a bit more information on this map. It seems that even though this map (and others in the Atlas) is attributed to Speed, as the cartographer, this is apparently actually a Dutch map that Speed simply "anglicized". Indeed, the style of including miniatures in the border is a Dutch invention known as "cartes à figures". This copying may explain why many of the miniature city plans at the top of the map are not of English colonies, despite this map appearing in an English atlas.

The map is quite beautiful and interesting. I'm not sure if the national archives would allow the public to view it, but it's an important piece of history that shows a snapshot of Canada from around 350 years ago. It's a marvelous piece. Oh, and it has sea monsters!

Wonderful Fictional Map Sells for Huge Sum at Art Auction

Normally, I limit the maps I write about to antiques that I own, would love to own or that are simply fascinating and historically important. This post is an exception because this map is not really any of those things. My wife brought my attention to a wonderful fictional map that recently sold for an astonishing sum, so I thought it deserved a post.

Recognize this wonderful map? It's the map of the 100 Acre Wood, home to Winnie-the-Pooh (and Tigger too!). My wife brought to my attention that this original map, drawn to compliment the first stories of Winnie-the-Pooh recently sold at auction for the fantastic sum of £430,000. 

It has some truly charming details, including the deliberate misspellnig of some words and notations such as Eeyore's home being "rather boggy and sad", Pooh's "trap for heffalumps", a "floody place", and a note that the stream continues to the north pole.

I, even as an adult, love the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, and so I can see the appeal of owning such a map, though it doesn't really fall into the category of maps I collect. Still, it's charming, wonderful, nostalgic and artistically beautiful. Also, to toot my Canadian horn a bit, it has a Canadian connection. Sort of. The map itself is most definitely British, but Winnie-the-Pooh is indisputably Canadian.

Have a watch:

Wooden 3D Map of the Chesapeake Bay

Most maps in my collection are original antiques, but not all of them. On a trip to Annapolis, Maryland I stopped in at Woodcraft Artisans (no affiliation) and bought a beautiful, interesting 3D nautical chart of Chesapeake Bay.

The image above is taken from the manufacturer's site Carved Lake Art. The image below is a less good picture of the map hanging on my wall. If you visit Carved Lake Art's site, you can see the map in great detail.

There are a few things I like about this map aside from the awesome effect of the 3D effect. The detail of the waterways on this map is impressive as are the images of the land.

Of the various different maps of this style available, I chose this one because at the time, I was living in Washington D.C., which is depicted on this map, also, it's a map of a place I was visiting at the time.

This is a unique map that is not the rarest, oldest or most expensive that I own, but it may be the most unique, so I'm happy to share it with my loyal readers (reader?) to hopefully enjoy what I enjoy about it.

First Nations Map Used by Lewis and Clark

I wanted to do a quick post, which is really a glorified reference to this post over at the Map Room Blog about a historically significant map made by a First Nations person named Too Né for Lewis and Clark in 1805. 

I can't find a much better quality image of this map, and it's hard to make out much detail, but I've read that it shows the course of the Missouri river and a number of different first nations. It also shows, in a few places, Lewis and Clark holding council. 

I don't have much to add to this post other than what's on the Map Room Blog. There is something about it though, that bears a very strong resemblance to this map, also drawn by a first nations person about 45 years earlier. It's interesting to consider if it would look different if it were made by a European and if the similarity in style between these two different first-nations maps has to do with a common way of seeing the world.

Yiddish Map of Palestine, 1939

Yiddish is a Germanic language which borrows words from Hebrew and is written in the Hebrew Alphabet. It's an old language and was historically spoken by Jews in Eastern and Central Europe. The number of speakers declined as a result of the Holocaust, but it remains the vernacular in many orthodox Jewish communities in Israel and elsewhere and has made somewhat of a cultural renaissance as evidenced by the popularity of things like this.

I had the good fortune to be offered a number of Yiddish books from an elderly relative who was downsizing. Among those books was "der algemeiner encyclopedia", the General Encyclopedia, published in Yiddish, in a number of volumes first in Paris, as of 1939 and later in New York.

1939 may have been the time in history with the most Yiddish speakers on the planet, before their numbers were drastically reduced by Nazi evil. These volumes are contemporary with that moment in history and they contain some Yiddish language maps. I'm not sure I'd ever seen one before and now I've discovered several of them. I wanted to write about them here, one at a time. I'll do my best to translate and explain what they are. They give fascinating insight into what the Jewish community found important at a moment in time when Nazism was on the rise, and when there were split allegiances within the Jewish community between various labour and communist movements, religious movements and the Jewish National movement, today known as Zionism.

The first map is in the "Jewish History" section of the encyclopedia and is titled "Palestine, in the Time of the Jewish Kingdom, a Historical Map". The caption at the bottom of the page reads: "A Historical Map of Palestine (Judah and Israel at the time of the splitting of the kingdom)". This relates to the biblical split between the 10 tribes of Israel and the other two tribes of Judah.

The legend on the map explains a bit about what we're looking at.

The areas shaded with dots are the the tribes of Israel while the one with solid lines are the tribes of Judah. The squiggly lines below the boxes are labeled as "vegn" which I would translate as ways, or routes or roads.

Above is an image of the map showing what today, would be parts of central and southern Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza.

Highlighted in Yellow is Jerusalem. The green square is around a place called Lod, which is essentially modern Tel Aviv. Israel's international airport is in Lod. Bethlehem is underlined in red, south of Jerusalem, Gaza city has a yellow square around it and underlined in blue is the ancient Jewish fortress of Massada. The Inclusion of Massada here is interesting, because it's not a place that appeared in the bible and only became famous afterwards as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. Its inclusion in this map is probably more of a nod to the Zionism of the time than to creating an accurate biblical map.

Finally, the kingdom of Edom is in a purple box and the kingdom of Moab underlined in purple.

I believe this map to be quite rare. I have almost never seen any Yiddish maps at all, much less old ones. It has a great deal of historic significance as well, not just for its content, but also for its purpose. It remains in the encyclopedia, which is in excellent condition, and I intend to keep it that way indefinitely.

Map of the states of North & South Carolina. (with) Plan of Charleston. London, published June 1 by I.T. Hinton & Simpkin & Marshall. Engraved & printed by Fenner Sears & Co. (1832)

On a trip to Asheville, North Carolina I was keen to come back with a map as a souvenier, but couldn't find anywhere in town that sold them. My wife and I therefore embarked on a bit of a goose (map) chase to out of the way antique shops on back roads 'till we came across a barn full of antiques. None of it was really interesting to me, and some of it fell into the category of "who would buy that"? Somehow, however, tucked in a corner, on a wall on the barn I found this fascinating specimen which I have since learned is properly titled: "Map of the states of North & South Carolina. (with) Plan of Charleston. London, published June 1 by I.T. Hinton & Simpkin & Marshall. Engraved & printed by Fenner Sears & Co. (1832)"

As always, a much higher quality, zoomable image of the map is available through Rumsey, but the one on that site is coloured, while mine is not.

The map comes from an atlas, as is clear from looking at it on Rumsey. The copy I have shows some interesting signs of that. There are a few small tears in it, where the binding must have been. It was framed when I bought it, so I have not been able to examine what's on its reverse, but close inspection shows that it must have been in a closed atlas for a long time before anyone ever opened it up. Each side of the page is slightly stained with an image of the opposite side. Look at these examples:

 

You may need to look quite closely, but there is definitely some staining to the paper from having likely been closed in a book, and possibly under pressure, for an extended period.

There are a few other elements of this map I find interesting. The Outer Banks, today a highly popular tourist destination, is very low on detail in this map. With an important exception, Roanoke Island. 

There's not much on or around Roanoke Island at this time to merit a mention, especially when other smaller islands nearby have nothing on them. Roanoke, however, is the site of the lost colony, and would likely have been of interest to Americans and British (the map was published in London) alike. The Island still presents mysteries to historians and holds an important place in American, British and North American history, so its inclusion is logical.

Another place that is in the Outer Banks and which also plays an important historical role but which is absent from this map, is Kitty Hawk, site of the first powered flight in 1903. Even today it's not a big town, and at the time, may simply not have existed at all, but it's impossible to imagine any map showing the Outer Banks after 1903 not at least indicating it's location.

I also find the inset plan of Charleston to be quite curious.

Obviously, Charleston of today is much larger, but this inset is interesting because it lacks so much detail. Two rivers are named, but there are no street names, so sites of interest, no names for the inlets or canals, the harbour, nothing. It's not even clear if the city ends at the northernmost east-west street, or if it just fades out of sight because of the size of the inset. The inset gives the view a sense of the size of the city, but otherwise, tells very little about it. I'm not sure why that is. Similarly missing is Fort Sumter, whose role in the history of the U.S. Civil War would likely guarantee its inclusion on any maps after 1860. In doing some research on this map I have found that this plan of Charleston predates any to appear in any American published atlas, which makes it somewhat unique.

Another point: I tend to research my maps as much as I can to get a sense of whether there are others out there and how much they sell for. I have only found one vendor of this map. It gives me the sense that what I have is quite scarce and perhaps a real treasure. It makes it that much more interesting to own, and I'm honored to be able to have it and care for it.

Wearable Maps: Newfoundland

I'm not the type to normally walk around in clothes adorned with maps, but after falling in love with Newfoundland on my first visit there, I could not resist this cool T-shirt map.

One of the things that makes this map so interesting is that it shows the names of some very small towns in Newfoundland. Also, it shows just how sparse the interior is, and how busy the coasts are. The size of the name on the map corresponds to the size of the town itself.

Really though, the best thing about this map, are the fun place names in Newfoundland. Some of which I've actually been to!

For example, on the image below, note Nickey's Nose Cove, Coffee Cove, and Leading Tickles.

Here we have Placentia, Dildo, Little Heart's Ease, and Bonavista, first sited by Cabot.

 Yes, these are all real places, and yes, they're beautiful. Get to Newfoundland, it's wonderful!