WILKINSON (Robert).

[Untitled Composite Atlas of the World.]

WITH SOME OF THE BEST MAPS OF THE ERA

Large folio (545 x 380 mm); contemporary manuscript index listing forty-six items (forty-four maps and two plates), numbered to sixty-three, with the sheets of the multi-sheet maps numbered individually, all in fine original wash colour, slightly oxidized, preserving several rare maps, and states of maps; map 44 (North-West Frontier) damaged with serious loss, the others in good condition. Recent half calf in period style with contemporary marbled paper-covered boards, six raised bands, red morocco label and gilt lettering to spine; boards very slightly rubbed. London, Robert Wilkinson, 1781.

£50,000.00

Important composite atlas assembled by Robert Wilkinson circa 1781 (the latest date on any map) in the first years of his career. Nothing is known about Wilkinson’s background; he emerges in 1779, when he took over John Bowles’s print- and map-publishing and selling business, which he operated until his death in 1825. That this is an early Wilkinson publication is demonstrated by the small number of original Wilkinson imprints present: the plate of the orrery and plan of Gibraltar. Wilkinson’s engraved trade-card / label can be found on the front paste-down.

The majority of the items come from three sources: John Bowles publications, often issued jointly with others but now owned, at least in part, by Wilkinson, on a few of which he inserted his own name; maps from William Faden jr. and from Robert Sayer; there are a small number of maps published by Carington Bowles (John’s son and sometime partner, sometime rival), Andrew Dury and Peter Andre.

Spread through the atlas are several genuine rarities: Samuel Dunn’s plate of the orrery; the plate of shipping and maritime flags published by John and Carington Bowles; Faden’s map of the British Colonies in North America, 1777; the four-sheet Delarochette map of Germany; the two-sheet Delarochette map of Minorca and single-sheet St. Philip’s Castle, both published by Faden, and Dury’s two-sheet map of the Provinces of Delhi, Agrah and Oude, 1777.

There are apparently unrecorded states of the Bowles ‘London directory’ plan of London, of Thomas Jeffery’s ‘Theatre of the Present War in the Netherlands …’ and Seale’s four-sheet map of Italy (the first two rare in any state), while Andre’s plan of Pondicherry, 1779, is only the second example traced, with no copy on COPAC.

As a bespoke composite atlas, sold by a little-known publisher from this period, this is a unique compilation of the best atlas maps of the period with a sprinkling of rare and important maps, but it is the colour and internal condition which are exceptional.

A full collation is available on request.

Stock No.
223020