Bermudas, Drawn from Actual Surveys, and Improved by Blunt's Coast Pilot.
New York: William Hooker, 1821. 25¼x17¾ inches sheet size. Ample margins; original blue backing with printed chartseller's advertisements pasted on verso; creases, light foxing and staining. Item #3791
This wonderful early American blueback chart of Bermuda provides a detailed mapping of the islands, copious depth soundings and a panel of General Instructions for Making the Bermuda Islands at the lower right. The Hooker chart is apparently the first separately issued chart of Bermuda published in America.
The chart was first issued in 1819. Two years later this edition was published. The two editions are easily distinguished by a re-engraved Instructions panel. Although the layout of the panel is markedly different, the only changes in text appear to be slight adjustments to the stated longitude and latitude of Wreck Hill at the top of the Instructions and a corresponding modification to the related narrative concerning Wreck Hill in the body of the Instructions. There are no obvious changes to the topography of the chart.
Another edition of the chart was published in 1842, this time with an E.W. Blunt imprint and without the General Instructions.
William Hooker (1782-1856) was an engraver, printer and publisher active in New York from about 1822 to 1846. He was primarily associated with the Blunt family map and book publishing enterprise; in 1816, he married Edmund M. Blunt’s daughter, Eliza. In addition to his work with the Blunt family, he engraved maps for Arrowsmith and Lewis’ New and Elegant General Atlas and engraved or published several New York-related maps, including multiple editions of Hooker’s New Pocket Plan of the City of New York between 1824 and the 1840s.
Affixed to the back of the chart is the label of the chartseller, William Souther, No. 96 & 98, State Street, Boston – Chart, Nautical Book and Stationary Warehouse. Also pasted down on the back is a large (about 4” wide by 18” long) list of books (6) and charts (17) published by the Edmund M. Blunt. (Included in the listing is a report highlighting Blunt’s correction – by 22 miles – of the location of the Nantucket Shoals as shown on a competitor’s chart.)
A rare chart. Of the three editions, only that of 1819 appears in the OCLC database – in a single holding at the Library of Congress. We are also aware of one example of this 1821 edition having been sold by a prominent map dealer.
[ICN 7812.].
Price: $4,000.00