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Description

Scarce sea 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 first edition was issued in 1832 and updated in 1842. This example is corrected to 1854.

Blunt's sea chart of the Southeastern US is one of the earliest obtainable sea charts of the region published in America. While chart makers such as Matthew Clark and John Norman produced charts of this section of the coastline for commercial use early as the 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, preferring instead to be as distributor of charts, as was Blunt during the first 20+ years of his business career.

Edmund Blunt (1770-1862) as an American publisher and compiler books and navigational aids, who 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 1842. 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 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.

Blunt's chart was followed several years later in 1845 by a revised chart of the same coastal, which increased the number of insets from two to six. This single chart was also issued as a series of charts covering the entire region from New England to the tip of Florida. Early editions of the Blunt chart of the Southeast are quite scarce, with OCLC locating only 2 examples (University of Michigan and Independence Seaport Museum) and several examples of the 1842 example have appeared in dealer catalogues in recent years (Swann June 2003; High Ridge Catalogue 13--1987).

Condition Description
Blue backed sea chart. Minor dampstaining.