Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

Engraved map, 432 x 559 mm. (Old folds, hinged to mat, few closed tears repaired on verso, left margin trimmed to plate).

FIRST STATE, without the page number engraved in top right.

First issued in Memoires de l’Amerique Septentrionale ou la Suite des Voyages in 1703, the map emphasizes the importance of the river trading routes, showing the Ottawa River joining the Abitibi River. The relationship of the whole of the northwest part of the map is “completely confused…but nevertheless, it is the first map of Canada that was generally available to the public and was one that defined, at least for the southern and eastern parts of the country, the fur-trading routes. It is perhaps this aspect that captured the imagination of Lahontan’s readers, and which led to the obvious popularity of the book and its numerous printings” (Kershaw). Lahontan's maps and most notably the map showing a western river extending to the Pacific, were among the most influential of all mythical cartographic works of North America, affecting the cartographic landscape of the upper Mississippi, Plains, and Rocky Mountain regions for nearly 50 years. The map depicts the Longue flowing from the mountains in the west (Rocky Mountains), home to the Gnacsitares Indians, and connecting to the Mississippi River. On the western side of the mountains is another river, presumably flowing into the Pacific. Lahontan's concept, although being mostly fictional, was enormously influential, and was copied by virtually all 18th-century cartographers, including Moll, Senex, Popple, and De L'isle, thus perpetuating the myth. The English colonies in New England are identified as New York, Manhattan, Montreal, Quebec, and Boston. The future site of Chicago is identified as the “Portage de Chegakou v des Illinois”.

Karpinski XLII; Kershaw 289; McCorkle 703; Verner & Stubbs 10.