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Fine example of the first edition of this rare pocket map edition of Doctor Luke Munsell's map of Kentucky.

Luke Munsell, a Frankfort, Kentucky surveyor, issued his remarkable map of Kentucky in 1818, the first large format map of the state ever published. The first edition of Munsell's map was commissioned by the Kentucky General Assembly on February 4, 1817, approving a loan of $6,000 to Munsell to complete the project, a loan which he was required to pay back, with interest, in 3 years. Munsell was never able to repay the loan, forcing the General Assembly to purchase copies of the map in 1820 for distribution throughout the state. An additonal 53 copies were purchased by the state in 1821, in order to complete the repayment of the loan.

The first edition of the map shows the boundaries based upon the Jackson-Shelby Treaty with the Chickasaw Indians, approved on October 19, 1818. Drafted on a scale of 5 miles to the inch, it was engraved by Hugh Anderson of Philadelphia, with cartouche by Thomas Sully.

The title of the first edition was:

A Map of the State of Kentucky, From actual Survey. Also part of Indiana and Illinois, Compiled principally from Returns in the Surveyor General's Office by Luke Munsell, 1818. . . . To the Legislature and People of the Commonwealth of Kentucky this map is respectfully inscribed as a testimony of their patronage and liberality in promoting its execution by The Author.

Prior to Munsell's map, there had been only much smaller atlas and pocket maps of the state. As Munsell's map was the first large (7.5 feet wide) wall map of Kentucky, its scale permitted far greater detail than any published previously. This scale, and Munsell's experience as a surveyor, rendered his map the most accurate of its day.

In 1834, Curtis M. Doolittle & Samuel Bishop Munson of Cincinnati, Ohio, published a smaller version of the original wall map on a scale of 1 inch = 8 miles, although at 49 x 37.5 inches, it was still a remarkable work. The General Assembly of Kentucky purchased 200 copies of this map, which it referred to as "Luke Munsell's improved map of Kentucky."

The present example is a faithful reduction of the 1834 wall map, retaining the inset maps of Louisville, Frankfort, Lexington and Marysvill and line engraving of the Capitol Building at Frankfort, although the table of statistics below the map is omitted in the pocket map version.

All editions of the map are rare. We locate no examples of any of edition of the map in a dealer catalog or at auction, with the exception of this copy.

OCLC locates only 1 copy of this 1835 edition of the map (Kentucky Historical Society).