Scarce mid 19th Century World atlas, published by a member of the first family of American mapmakers, Charles Morse.
The present atlas is perhaps the scarcest of the Morse family atlases and the final chapter in a publishing history that dated back to the 1780s.
The Morse family, including Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826), Sidney Edwards Morse (1794–1871), Charles W. Morse (1803–1882), Samuel Breese Morse (1791–1872), and Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872), played a key role in shaping American geography, cartography, and technological innovation.
Jedidiah, known as the "Father of American Geography," authored foundational works like Geography Made Easy (1784) and The American Universal Geography (1793), which were essential for early U.S. educational curricula. Sidney furthered this legacy by developing cerography, a revolutionary wax-engraving technique that produced affordable maps such as the Cerographic Atlas of the United States (1842), transforming cartographic publishing, following by Morse & Breese's North American Atlas in 1842. The business continued by Charles W. Morse with his General Atlas in 1856.
Samuel F.B. Morse, while not active in the geography business, was famed as the inventor of the telegraph and Morse code.
The following is a list of the maps:
- Eastern Hemisphere
- Western Hemisphere
- Mercator's Projection
- Northwest Passage
- North America
- Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
- Canada East
- Canada West
- United States of America
- State of Maine
- State of New Hampshire
- State of Vermont
- State of Massachusetts
- State of Rhode Island
- State of Connecticut
- State of New York
- State of New Jersey
- State of Pennsylvania
- State of Maryland
- State of Delaware
- State of Virginia
- State of North Carolina
- State of South Carolina
- State of Georgia
- State of Alabama
- State of Florida
- State of Mississippi
- State of Louisiana
- State of Texas
- State of Arkansas
- State of Tennessee
- State of Kentucky
- State of Ohio
- State of Indiana
- State of Michigan
- State of Wisconsin
- State of Illinois
- State of Iowa
- State of Missouri
- Territories of the United States
- State of California
- Mexico
- West India Islands
- South America
- Ecuador, New Granada, Venezuela, and Guiana
- Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, La Plata, Paraguay, and Uruguay
- Europe
- British Isles
- England
- Scotland and Ireland
- France and Switzerland
- Spain and Portugal
- Italy
- Austrian Empire
- Prussia and West Germany
- Holland and Belgium, and Denmark
- Sweden and Norway
- Russia
- Turkey in Europe, Greece, and the Ionian Isles
- Africa
- Egypt and Nubia
- North Africa, South Africa
- West Africa
- Asia
- Turkey in Asia, Persia, Trans-Caucasia, Afghanistan, Belochistan
- Hindostan—British India
- China
- Japan, Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand
- Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales
- Pacific Ocean