Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
Description

Only the Second Atlas of Purely American Subject Matter to Be Published in the United States -- with the Rare Washington, D.C. Map.

Folio, publisher's boards and cover title piece (rebacked and recornered). Letterpress title page with integral contents, and 21 engraved maps (including the Washington, D.C. plan after Ellicott).

John Reid followed Mathew Carey one year after the publication of the latter's American Atlas, to publish only the second ever U.S.-published atlas of only American content.

The atlas features the following maps:

  1. A General Map of North America Drawn from the Best Surveys 1795
  2. A General Map of South America From the Best Surveys 1796
  3. An Accurate Map of the United States of America. according to the Treaty of Peace 1783
  4. The State of New Hampshire, Compiled chiefly from Actual Surveys.  1796.
  5. The Province of Maine, From the best Authorities 1795
  6. The State of Massachusetts from the best Information 1796
  7. The State of Rhode Island from the Latest Surveys 1796.
  8. Vermont from the latest Authorities
  9. Connecticut From the best Authorities.
  10. The State of New York, Compiled from the most Authentic Information. 1796.
  11. The State of New Jersey, Compiled from the most Accurate Surveys.
  12. The State of Pennsylvania, from the latest Surveys.
  13. The States of Maryland and Delaware, from the latest Surveys. 1795.
  14. The State of Virginia from the best Authorities. 1796.
  15. Map of the State of Kentucky; with the Adjoining Territories. 1795.
  16. the State of North Carolina from the best Authorities.
  17. The State of South Carolina: from the best Authorities 1796.
  18. a Map of the Tennassee Government formerly Part of North Carolina from the latest Surveys, 1795.
  19. Georgia from the latest Authorities.
  20. An Accurate Map of the West Indies with the Adjacent Coast of America. 1796
  21. Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia ceded by the States of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America and by them established as the Seat of their Government, after the Year 1800
Condition Description
Overall a very good example. Staining to the upper right corner of the North Carolina map. Some minor variable offsetting throughout.
Reference
Howes R170; Phillips Atlases 1216.
John Reid Biography

Following Mathew Carey’s publication of the American Atlas in 1795, the second large format atlas published in America was produced by John Reid of New York in 1796. The project began as an atlas to accompany William Winterbotham’s An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the United States, but was also sold separately under the title The American Atlas.

Reid’s atlas included 20 maps. In addition, John Russell’s plan of Washington, D.C. is also bound into some copies of the Atlas. Reid’s atlas was a collaborative work, with 9 of the maps engraved by Benjamin Tanner, 5 by David Martin, two by D. Anderson and one each by John Scoles and John Roberts. Two of the maps do not include engraving credits. Each of the engravers was probably working in New York (including Tanner, who had not yet relocated to Philadelphia). According to the various entries for the maps in Wheat & Brun, the cartographic content of the maps is drawn largely from Carey’s first atlas of 1795.