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One of the Great Rarities of American Atlas Collecting - Fielding Lucas's A New and Elegant General Atlas.

A nice, unsophisticated example of Fielding Lucas's first atlas, published in Baltimore in 1817 (as dated on the Louisiana map, see Foster's quote below).

This is the largest variant of the New and Elegant General Atlas, including a total of 54 engraved maps; two maps of the world (the hemispheric map in two plates); 17 European maps; 6 Asian maps; 2 African maps; and 26 American maps, including many very rare early maps of states.

In this example, the map of the United States is annotated by hand to reflect the division of Mississippi into Mississippi and Alabama (1817).

Rarity and Issues

All Fielding Lucas atlases are rare, however, this, his first atlas, is among the Holy Grails of American atlas collecting.

Lucas first announced his intentions to publish an atlas of about 6 maps in early-to-mid 1812. In September of 1812, he stated that "Specimens of part of the Maps of this NEW ATLAS, are now ready for inspection." The atlas is not mentioned again until December 1813, when all the engraving was presumed to have been complete. Lucas had bound copies of that first iteration of the atlas available in February of 1814, about two months before Carey's 1814 atlas was available.

The atlas developed over the following years and was issued in small numbers in variant configurations. One variant includes only the world, continental, and state maps (for a total of 31, see Rumsey 4534); the more complete issue (like the present one), includes European, Asian, and African maps as well, bringing the total to 54 (this example). Rumsey also has a Lucas atlas with a new title page, issued in 1822, which includes maps from the 1817 atlas and from the 1823 atlas.

Foster, page 186:

Lucas's earliest atlas, entitled A New and Elegant General Atlas Containing Maps of Each of the United States, was issued in 1814. It was this work that nearly caused a rupture in Lucas's relations with Carey. It consisted of 31 plates engraved by Henry S. Tanner after drawings by Samuel Lewis. None was Lucas's own work. In the next edition of the same title, 54 plates, issued in 1817, we find two double pages, one of Virginia, the other of Louisiana, that bear his name, presumably as draftsman. Several variant editions indicate that these atlases were made up for binding at intervals as lucas obtained improved maps, some of them by his own hand. As the settlement of the middle west and the southern states proceeded, it must have been hard work for the map makers to keep abreast of changes in the frontier, the rise of towns and other works of man.

Apparently unknown to Foster, there was a pre-1817 54-plate issue of the atlas, probably done around 1816, which included the original single-page maps of Virginia and Louisiana in lieu of the double-page maps that replaced them in the more standard 1817 issue. We previously handled an example of that variant atlas in 2020.

RBH records only three examples of the atlas appearing on the market since 1989. Lucas's other major atlas, his General Atlas of 1823 - a great book in itself - is somewhat more common, and examples can currently be found on the market for between $21,000 and $27,000.

Prospectus

Here is the transcription of the second leaf of the atlas, with which we wholeheartedly concur.

PROSPECTUS.

GEOGRAPHY is admitted to be, of all sciences, one of the most pleasing, and, at the same time, the most useful: it is of almost universal concern; persons of every rank and situation in life, are more or less interested in, and reap advantage from, an acquaintance with it. While it is indispensably necessary to the Statesman, the Merchant, the Mariner, and the Traveller, it likewise furnishes abundant matter for investigation to the Philosopher; assists the Divine in understanding and explaining many parts of the Holy Writ, that, without its aid would be obscure and uninteresting; is necessary to the reader of history; and, indeed, to every one, who peruses the daily accounts of events, that are taking place in the different parts of the world, or even in our own country.

It has always formed a part of polite education; and has more or less engaged, at all times, the attention of mankind, but now it has become more particularly interesting; in consequence of the great and important events that have so recently taken place.

These considerations, have induced the publisher of this Atlas to extend his original plan in order to make it more generally useful, by adding the maps of the different divisions of Europe, Asia and Africa, which are now engraved, in the same elegant manner of the maps heretofore offered to the public, and of a corresponding size. The publisher flatters himself, that this Atlas is the most complete of the size ever published, and will be found to contain more accurate information, particularly of our own country, than any work of the kind ever offered; he has chosen the present size, not only on account of its being more portable than larger maps, but also, because hereby he is enabled to afford every necessary information at a moderate expense.

Provenance

"J.B. Wardwell - Obtained in Washington in War Time"
This is perhaps the Civil War Captain J.B. Wardwell whose portrait is illustrated here.

We wish to extend our thanks to Jay Lester and Ashley Baynton-Williams for their assistance in cataloging this atlas.