[NORMAN, John]. - William NORMAN.

A New and Accurate Chart of the Bay of Chesapeak including the Delaware Bay with all the Shoals, Channels, Islands, Entrances, Soundings & Sailing marks as far as the Navigable Part of the Rivers Patowmack Patapsco & N East. Drawn from several Draughts made by the most Experienced Navigators Chiefly those of Anthony Smith Pilot of St. Mapys and compared with the latest Surveys of Viriginia and Maryland.

Boston: Printed & Sold by W. Norman, [1794]. Copper engraved sea chart, on four joined sheets. Overall sheet size: 42 3/8 x 34 1/4 inches.

The first large-scale map of the Chesapeake region published in America.

This map was first published as part of William Norman's 1794 edition of The American Pilot. This beautiful example is present here in the first state, with the "St. Mapys" for St. Marys reading in the title. This error was corrected for the 1798 and subsequent editions of the atlas. A magnificent undertaking early in the history of American mapmaking, this great chart is the centerpiece of the Normans' American pilot. While pre-eminently a work created for practical purposes, it is at the same time part of the process whereby American came into possession of itself and became acquainted with its new, extraordinary identity and possibilities. The American Revolution brought an end to Britain's leading role in the mapping of America. The task now fell to the American publishing industry still in its infancy, but with first-hand access to the new surveys that were documenting the rapid growth of the nation. In particular, there was a need for nautical charts for use by the expanding New England commercial fleets. The first American marine atlas, Mathew Clark's A Complete Set of Charts of the Coast of America, was published in Boston in 1790. Two of Clark's charts had been engraved by John Norman, who was inspired to launch his own enterprise. In January 1790, Norman published a notice in the Boston Gazette stating he was currently engraving charts of all the coast of America on a large scale. These were assembled and published as The American Pilot in Boston in 1791. Norman's Pilot, the second American marine atlas, indeed the second American atlas of any kind, marked an advance over the earlier work of Mathew Clark. New editions of Norman's Pilot appeared in 1792 and 1794, and after his death, his son, William Norman, brought out editions in 1794, 1798, 1801, and 1803. Despite the seemingly large number of editions, The American Pilot is one of the rarest of all American atlases. Wheat and Brun (pps. 198-199) locate just ten complete copies for the first five editions: 1791 (Huntington, Harvard); 1792 (Library of Congress, Clements); 1794(1) (Library of Congress, John Carter Brown Library, Boston Public Library); 1794(2) (Yale); 1798 (Library of Congress, Boston Public Library). Provenance: de-accessioned by the Museum of the City of New York.

Wheat & Brun 310; Swem, Maps relating to Virginia 350 (1798 edition); Phillips, p. 723 (1798 edition); Phillips, Virginia Cartography, p. 65 (1798 edition); cf. Wroth, Some Contributions to Navigation, pp. 32-33.

Item #23677

Price: $95,000.00