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Description

First edition of Blunt's chart of the region from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to St. Augustine Florida, one of a series of maps covering the east coast of North America, engraved by William Hooker and published by E & G.W. Blunt of New York.

Blunt's sea chart of the Southeastern US is one of the earliest obtainable sea charts of the region published in America. The present first edition can be distinguished from later editions by the additional inland rivers in South Carolina and the lack of a date at the bottom center below the neatline. Later editions were issued in 1842 and 1854.

While chart makers such as Matthew Clark and John Norman produced charts of this section of the coastline for commercial use as early as the last decade of the 18th Century, it was not until Blunt's charts that American commercial publishers began competing with their English competitors for primacy in the American market.

Edmund Blunt (1770-1862) as an American publisher and compiler of books and navigational aids, was active as early as the last decade of the Century. While his name is associated with a number of navigational books and guides, the only 18th Century large format map bearing his name is a chart of George's Bank, including Cape Cod, Nantucket and the shoals lying on their coast, with directions for sailing over the same &c.., published in New Haven, on which Blunt collaborated with Amos Doolittle and Paul Pinkham.

Blunt did not become active in the production of larger format sea charts until the 1820s, and it was not until after 1840 when Blunt began actively publishing separately issued working sea charts for the merchant and commercial navigational markets. The present map of the Southeastern US is Blunt's first large format single sheet map of the region, which was first published in 1832. The chart includes soundings, shading, and form lines; The publisher's notes include "Engraved and printed by W. Hooker." The details are restricted to the coastal features, with a number of lighthouses shown with red and yellow spots.

The chart is oriented with north to the right and includes 2 large insets: (1) Charleston Harbour, S. Ca, Reduced from the Original Survey of Major H. Bache . . .and (2) A Trigonometrical survey of the entrance of St. John's River made in 1823 by the officers of the U.S. Navy, surveying the coast of Florida; [engraved by] William Hooker, Aug. 1832.

Condition Description
Original working sea chart. Minor soiling.