Oct 02, 2012 - Sale 2287

Sale 2287 - Lot 403

Price Realized: $ 9,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
ONE OF THE FIRST AMERICAN ROAD ATLASES (PENNSYLVANIA.) Moore, [Joshua John]; and Thomas W. Jones. The Traveller's Directory, or a Pocket Companion: Shewing the Course of the Main Road from Philadelphia to New York, and from Philadelphia to Washington. 38 maps on 22 plates. 8vo, contemporary calf, moderate wear, rebacked in period style; stain in lower margin of leaf D4, two map numbers cropped; pencil sketch of a lake scene on rear free endpaper. With initial blank and half-title. (JMR) Philadelphia, 1802
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first edition of "one of the earliest guides"--Howes M778 ("aa"). Preceded by only one other book of American road maps, the "Survey of the Roads of the United States" by Colles.
Moore and Jones begin their work with a detailed 17-page description of Philadelphia, followed by shorter descriptions of New York and Washington and the towns en route in New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. It concludes with the detailed route maps, which were engraved from original surveys and show cross streets, topographical features, and individual buildings. The project was commissioned by publisher Mathew Carey, and proved to be a difficult undertaking. The surveyors wrote to Carey in 1801: "After twelve days driving our way through an immense multitude of Questioners, Observers, laughers, & Critics, who generally thronged us at every place . . . it has nearly exhausted our health, as every violent effort naturally must" (quoted in Felcone, New Jersey Books 886). Sabin 50436; Streeter sale VII:3969.