Jean-Baptiste d’Anville (1697-1782) was the greatest geographer and cartographer of his generation, described by Shirley as “a scrupulous editor of maps, continually updating their geographical content and often preparing critical texts to accompany them” (Shirley, p. 176). His influence spread throughout Europe, with English versions of his classical atlas described under entries 20-28, with his original maps present here.
He was a prolific mapmaker; much of his output was assembled into large folio composite atlases, known as the Atlas General, although a considerable number of the extant copies are without a title-page, as here. The core of the atlas are multi-sheet maps; there are a pair of maps of the Eastern and Western Hemisphere, two-sheet maps of ‘Premiere Partie la Carte de Europe …’, ‘Seconde Partie …’ and ‘Troisieme Partie …’, the ‘Premiere …’, ‘Seconde …’ and ‘Troisieme Partie d’Asie …’, maps of Africa, India, North America on four sheets joined as two, Eastern North America on four uncut sheets, South America on six sheets joined as three, and the important large two-sheet map of Louisiana.
The influence of these maps can readily be seen in the large format atlas maps issued by Thomas Kitchin and Robert Sayer in the 1770s.
A full collation is available on request.
Reference: Shirley, T.ANV-2 describes four comparable atlases in the British Library.
