Lot 159: MELISH, John (1771-1822). Map of the United States with the contiguous Brit

MELISH, John (1771-1822). Map of the United States with the contiguous British and Spanish Possessions. Philadelphia: John Melish, 1818. A handsome copy of the frst large and detailed American map to show the entire country from the Atlantic to the Pacifc. This copy is the third state of the second edition, published in 1818. The frst edition was published in 1816 and editions continued until 1823 in a couple of dozen diferent states. This issue is the frst to show Illinois as a state rather than a territory and to include Chicago as part of Illinois. It was one of the 1818 Melish maps that was used in the negotiations to settle the boundary between U.S. and Spanish possessions in 1819. Ristow, “John Melish and His Map of the United States,” Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, vol. 19, no. 4, 1962. Engraved map hand-colored in outline, 888 x 1450mm to neatline, printed on six plates, sectioned into 40 panels, linen-backed, and edged in yellow ribbon, two panels additionally backed in marbled paper (some mild browning along some folds, small losses to linen at fold intersections).