Sale 2496 - Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books, December 13, 2018

235 c   COLTON, GEORGE WOOLWORTH. Colton’s Atlas of America, Illustrating the Physical and Political Geography of North and South America and the West India Islands. Engraved frontispiece vignette and 58 hand-colored engraved mapsheets (2 double-page). Folio, 18 1 / 2 x16 1 / 2 inches, publisher’s quarter pictorial cloth, moderate wear and repairs; maps gently age toned but generally nice. New York: J.H. Colton & Company; and Baltimore: James Waters, 1856 [3,000/5,000] Rare first edition of Colton’s American atlas, complete as issued, without text by Richard Swainson Fisher seen in later editions. Issued here as a stand-alone publication, the present maps are the same as what appears in Colton’s two-volume “Atlas of the World” published a year earlier in 1855. That larger atlas was not initially a great commercial success and re-issuing the maps in this format gave Colton a vehicle to focus on an audience with a primary interest in the United States. The maneuver worked, as the “Atlas of America” would come out in several subsequent editions. Western maps are still without railroads; in California explored trails and proposed routes to be built are shown; early border configurations appear with Minnesota’s western boundary at the Missouri River; Nebraska extends to the northern reaches of the U.S. and Nevada and Arizona are still included in Utah and New Mexico. Plans of both major and growing cities are included on separate sheets and as insets within state maps, a combination of urban cartography and the expanding nation and points west. Ristow 325; Sabin 14787.