A handsome example of the 1857 Samuel August Mitchell New Universal Atlas, an important edition from one of the quintessential American atlas series of the 19th century.
Despite being an atlas of the world, most of the atlas is concerned with the United States. The atlas includes important early maps of Texas, and the American West, as well as many beautiful maps of individual states.
In 1845, Mitchell had acquired the rights to Tanner's New Universal Atlas (which had first been published in 1836). Mitchell published the atlas until the 1850s when he sold the copyright to Cowperthwait & Co. Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co. published the atlas until the mid-1850s when it was again sold to Charles Desilver.
This atlas includes extensive manuscript maps of Chester, Pennsylvania on the backs of many of the maps.