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Description

Extremely rare separately printed map of Long Island, New York City and the area north of the City and Long Island. Includes the contiguous Connecticut Coastline to just beyond Stonington Bay and Fisher's Island and to just north of Tappen Zee and Haverstray Bay to Hoch Land (Highland Falls / West Point area).

This marvelously detailed map, extending from the Hudson River Narrows to the Highlands in the west (including Manhattan), and including all of Long Island and the contiguous coastline of Connecticut. It is one of the most detailed maps to focus on Long Island and vicinity. The map identifies towns, roads, bays, rivers, islands and other features. It is the earliest printed map to focus on Long Island and one of the largest scale treatments of Long Island published during or prior to the American Revolution (other charts and maps of similar proportion would include Thornton's 1689 Part of New England, New York, East Iarsey and Long Iland; Thomas Jefferys 1755 A Map of the [Most ] Inhabited Part of New England. . . . and John Montressor's 1775 A Map of the Province of New York. Arent Roggeveen's 1685 Pascaerte van Nieu Nederland Streckende vande Zuÿdt Revier tot de Noordt Revier en't Lange Eÿland is perhaps the earliest sea chart to focus on the region, although on a smaller scale and with much less detail.

A close comparison of Muller's map and the 1755 Jefferys's map suggests that Muller's map was likely drawn directly from the Jefferys, as the title ( Der Teufels Belt gemeiniglich genannt der Lange Insels Sund) is the German translation for the Jefferys's legend. In Long Island Sound, The Devils Belt, commonly called Long Island Sound, and the roads, topographical details and name placements in the Muller map closely follow Jefferys's. While the 1775 Montressor uses the same name for Long Island Sound, there is much less similarity between the Muller map and the Montressor map.

This is apparently the first example of the map (with or without the accompanying text) to appear on the market in the past 100 years and the only known example to have been issued separately. The only specific references we could find to the map were in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Volume XIIL, July 1909, No. 7, reporting acquisitions for the month of June 1909, a subsequent exhibition catalogue for the same example of the map ( List of Prints, Books, Manuscripts, etc. Relating to Henry Hudson, The Hudson River, Robert Fulton And Steam Ship Navigation -- Exhibited in the Lenox Branch, New York Public Library on the Occasion of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration September, 1909 (page 83)), and the catalog entry in OCLC, locating the separate example of the map held by the Bayerische Staatbibliothek . The only early catalog annotation describing Muller's work is in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library (July 1909), which states:

Several purchases of Americana of more than usual interest have been made during the month. These include. . . the " Geographische Belustigungen zur Erläuterung der neuesten Weltgeschichte. Mit Landkarten, Planen und Kupfern nach den neuesten und besten Originalen. (Zum Besten einer Freyschule in Sachsen)," published at Leipzig by the Johann Carl Müllerischen Buch-und Kunsthandlung in 1776, 2 parts in i, 4°, in the original wrappers, uncut.
This latter included three interesting maps: (i) "Carte von dem Hafen und der Stadt Boston mit den umliegenden Gegenden und den Lägern sowohl der Americaner als auch der Engländer von dem Cheval de Beaurin nach dem Pariser Original von 1776;" (2) "Ein Theil des mitternächtlichen America welcher die Besitzungen der Englander in denselben begreift. Nach dem Original des Herrn Bonne, Paris, 1773, Leipzig bey J. C. Müller Buch und Kunsthaendler, 1777;" (3) " Der Teufels Belt gemeiniglich genannt der Lange Insels Sund."

However, unlike the example referenced above, the present example was printed on thick paper and bound unfolded into what would appear to be a large folio composite atlas, almost certainly published during the American Revolution.

The work is of the utmost rarity. Sabin only notes the existence of the First Part (Sabin 2690), which includes a Boston area Plan of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The only American institutions holding copies of the Second Part are the New York Public Library and the example referenced in the 1830 Catalog for the holdings of Harvard Library (both of which were folded into quarto sized bindings). The only auction record for the work in modern times is for the first volume only (Bloomsbury 2008), in which the work (Part 1 only) was described as follows:

The German pamphlet [includes] reviews of the history of the English in North America, followed by sections on New England, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The map bound in the rear, titled Carte von dem Hafen und der Stadt Boston, is by Georg Friedrich Frentzel after one by Jean Chevalier de Beaurain published in Paris the same year. It includes three lettered references in the lower margin identifying the site of the 17 June 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill and delineates the positions of the American Army at Cambridge, Charlestown Neck and above Roxbury. The decorative cartouche includes a vignette depicting a British officer attempting to wrest a Liberty Pole from an American patriot.
A second part to this work treating the southern colonies containing a map of Long Island was also issued (but separately?). OCLC records only a single copy of this work with both parts (New York Public Library).

The example referenced above was apparently sold to Donald Heald following the Bloomsbury sale in 2008. The Heald catalog entry for the item reads in relevant part as follows:

Müller apparently issued two parts to this work, both of which are exceptionally rare. There are no auction records; Sabin notes the present first part, but was evidently unaware of the existence of the second part, sub-titled "Allgemeine Beschreibung der engländischen Colonien in Nord-Amerika, nebst einer Karte von denselben und einer Karte von Long-Island." OCLC records only a single copy of this work (with both parts) in the New York Public Library (both Heald and Bloomsbury apparently were not able to locate the John Carter Brown Copy).

In addition to the New York Public Library Copy, OCLC also locates the John Carter Brown copy, both in 2 volumes. OCLC locates the following examples of the Volume 1: Danish National LIbrary, Bayerische Staatbibliothek (which also catalogues individually the map of Long Island); and Sachische Landesbibliothek. OCLC locates the following examples of Volume 2 alone: Univ. Forsdchungbibliothek Erfurt Gotha and Sachische Landesbibliothek.

A nice example of this virtually unobtainable rarity, offered here in a unique format.

Condition Description
Foxing. Margin extended at lower right corner.