A New General and Universal Atlas, Maps by Andrew Dury, London, 1761: Complete

I know: you wait months for a post about old maps, and then two come along at once.

This beautiful little (roughly 4.5 x 6 inches) 1761 atlas arrived in the shop last week, and if you'll forgive me, I want to post all its maps online, just so they are recorded complete, somewhere. (Apologies that some of the photos are sharper than others.)

The binding needs rebacking (both boards are detached), but as you'll see, the maps themselves are in very good shape, considering they're over 250 years old... They are all hand-coloured in outline, which must have been a *very* delicate job.

Copies of this atlas are not common. I can currently find only 2 online, one with some damage at £750, and another for over two grand... Individual maps taken from a copy are also around, for upwards of $100 each. I won't be breaking this copy up though...

First off is a close-up of the local area (interesting to see 'KirkOswald' and Ainstable get equal billing with Penrith), followed by the whole book, in order.

[UPDATE: The atlas has now sold. I didn't think it would last long, and indeed it didn't!]

Punishing Russian Pirates and Mandarin Justice: A View Of The World From 1807

This imposing looking two-volume set arrived in the Little Shop this week...

It's quite foxed in places, and some of the foldy-out bits have been folded and re-folded so many times over its more-than-two-centuries existence (just let that sink in for a bit) that they've got a bit creased, but the bindings are sound, and the contents still do what they were designed to do: impart a great wodge of information in a very accessible way.

A General View of the World was originally published in 1804 in one volume; this is the second edition, possibly expanded. Its author, The Rev. Ezekiel Blomfield was a Congregational minister, who managed to write this massive work (and others) for the Suffolk publisher Bungay around his religious commitments and his home life — he was a father of nine. He died, presumably totally knackered, aged 39 in 1818.

Here's a quick gallop through just a few of the illustrations and maps in the book. Look out for:

— a map of the US where the West is basically blank

— what the posh Icelander is mostly wearing this season

— some very naughty Russian pirates

— various views of life in China (including some poor miscreant being beaten on the soles of his feet) from a time when it was still largely closed to the West

Blomfield's aim was no doubt to provide 'the only book you'll ever need about the World', and by 1807 standards, he has a damn good stab at it. I would have loved the chance to peruse it more, but it's already been snapped up...

A Philip K. Dick Panther Cover Gallery, Or, Have A Look At My Dick.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a second hand book dealer in possession of a good-sized pile of Philip K. Dick books will not be in want of customers.

Sure enough, the selection of PKD titles which arrived in the Little Shop last week has all but disappeared already, but not before hours of fun were had with such quips and badinage as:

"Check out the size of my Dick!"
"My Dick has just grown a lot bigger."
"I love a bit of Dick."
"I'm going to put my Dick in the window."

Et cetera, et cetera... Alas, my Dick has now shrunk back to normal.

Most of the books that came and went were recent UK paperback printings, from the last ten years or so. While they were perfectly nice to look at, I think the 1970s UK paperbacks, published under the Panther Science Fiction imprint, have the edge. Reason enough to see how many of their covers I can find lurking online... (I'm sure this is far from complete though).