PBA Galleries

With half-title and  title page,  index map, and 60 double-page lithographed maps (numbered 1-57, with 1 bis, 5 bis and 18 bis), with hand-coloring in outline. 53.5x37 cm (21x14½"), period leather-backed boards.

The third volume (of six) of Vandermaelen's extraordinary atlas, covering the whole world in a uniform large scale. This volume covers Africa and nearby islands, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. A number of the maps have fairly extensive lithographed text within boxes, sometime over water portions, at other times conveniently covering up unknown parts of the mysterious continent. The Princeton University website describes the copy of the whole atlas they acquired in 2009, as "consisting of approximately 380 conically projected sheets of maps and 40 pages of statistical tables in six volumes. This folio-size atlas is remarkable for several reasons. It is the first atlas produced by the then new printing process of lithography. It is also the first atlas to show the whole world in maps using a large uniform scale—about 26 miles to the inch. Moreover, the maps are designed to be joined into a three-dimensional terrestrial globe with a diameter of approximately 7.75 meters (almost 25 feet)." Phillips 749; Woodward, Five Centuries of Map Printing, Chapter 4; Wellens-De Donder, Phillpe Vandermaelen 1795-1869.