Historic Maps
66 Full-Page Color-Outlined Maps - Thomas Bradford’s 1835 American “Comprehensive Atlas, Geographical, Historical & Commercial”
1835-Dated, First Edition Printing of Thomas Bradford’s, “A Comprehensive Atlas, Geographical, Historical & Commercial,” Boston, William D. Ticknor, with 66 Full-page, Color-outlined Maps, Choice Fine.
This is the First Edition of what is considered to be, “one of the first American general atlases to supplement the maps with lengthy geographical descriptions” (Ristow, 271), with Hand-colored frontispiece, entitled “The Five Varieties of the Human Race,” and 66 detailed Color-outlined Maps, 19 of which being Maps of the United States, and has 10 Engraved Diagrams.

This Altlas has it’s original Marbled Boards rebacked in three-quarter green close-grain Morocco with decorative raised bands, Folio, measuring 11” x 13.5” complete with its original brown spine label laid down and gold print, worn but with a 1” end piece lacking at the top of the spine. There are some trivial scattered marginal edge chips and expected offset and foxing.

Thomas Bradford served as assistant editor of the American Encyclopedia before entering the arena of atlas publishing. This, his first atlas, is made up of 66 Full-Page, Color-Outlined Maps based on the most up-to-date information available at the time. Although the maps are unsigned, they were probably engraved by G. W. Boynton of Boston, who did the engraving for Bradford’s Illustrated Atlas of 1838. Unlike most atlases of the period, Bradford’s includes an extensive descriptive text of 172 pages. Each of the engravings is accompanied by explanatory articles on the history, economics and geography of the area, as well as contemporary statistical data. We have seen a record of another example, in apparently similar quality, offered by a major Book and Map dealer at $6,000. That seems reasonable as at a nominal $100 per Map this Atlas’s 66 examples amount to $6,600. Our estimate range reflects about half that amount! Sabin 7260. See Martin & Martin 31; Phillips 770. An important and rare, bound early American Atlas.