Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

Title Page for the First Atlas of an American State With An Important South Carolina Provenance

Rare title page for this landmark work on 19th century American cartography.

In American Maps and Mapmakers, Walter Ristow describes the Mills Atlas of South Carolina as ‘A significant first in American cartography.’ He devotes an entire chapter to this production, the only native atlas to bear this distinction. This atlas preceded by four years the state-sponsored atlases of Maine and New York, by Moses Greenleaf and David Burr respectively. There would not be another state atlas for 35 years and those would be commercial, not state-instigated, publications.

The history of the mapping of South Carolina in the early years of the 19th century shows intractable intertwining of production of the Mills atlas and John Wilson’s map of the state published in 1822. Many of the same district surveys were used for both, but Mills redrafted these maps for inclusion in his atlas. Ristow recounts the full history of the atlas, as does the introduction to the 1980 reprint of the atlas published by the Southern Historical Press.

Rarity

It is not known exactly how many copies of the first edition of the Mills atlas were published, but it is estimated to have been at least 500, that being the lowest number at which expenses might have been substantially recovered. For a variety of reasons, however, most prominently the devastation of South Carolina by Sherman during the Civil War, the number of surviving copies is far lower.

This is the first example of the title page we have offered for sale.