Globe Corner Blogs

Blaeu's Atlas Maior of 1665

Here are some of what I would call “Hidden Treasures of the Store.” If I could, I would call every single map in the store a Hidden Treasure, but I will restrain myself for your sake.  These few things that I mention are not truly hidden, but do get overlooked once in a while.  So feel free to ask about them or come check them out.

Joan Blaeu’s Atlas Maior: This is an amazing atlas of the world from 1665 which contains some of the most beautiful maps I have ever seen.  The best part is if you do not want the whole world you don’t have to get it.  There are separate atlases from 1665 of France, Germany, Italy and other locations.

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Oxford Atlas of the World

In the future I imagine for myself (on those days when homework is piling up and the money is running low) I have my own library. Dark wood, of course, ladders to the ceiling, a fireplace, fat maroon reading chaises–you know, the usual. I also will own two wooden oversized book stands. On one will sit a worn and perpetually open Oxford English Dictionary. The other will hold aloft, reverently, an atlas.

The question then is: what atlas? As many new ones have come to the store in the past few weeks, the answer has only slipped further from my grasp. The obvious choice for a library out of a 19th century novel is the new, leather-bound Oxford Comprehensive Atlas of the World, which just came out in October. Two-hundred-ninety pages of maps! (I think that deserves another exclamation point: !) And how perfect would its gilded pages look up on that stand? But then there is the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, also out this October. Slightly fewer pages of maps, but over 200,000 place names and geographical features in an unbelievable index. (!) This decision would require much sitting in a plush overstuffed chair, staring into the fire.

As it stands, I have no library. I have bookcase upon bookcase of books I’ve read, books I’m going to read, and books I pretend I’ll get to some day. I still want an atlas, though, and am considering upgrading from my 1999 Oxford with this year’s also new standard sized Oxford Atlas of the World. The sale here brings it to $68, which is, of course, another selling point. Sure, it’s not as big as the Comprehensive, but that way it doesn’t need that atlas stand from the dream of my future–my bed can suffice for now.

T-minus 16 days and counting! If you’re anything like me, you don’t remember this holiday until the Saturday before when your Mother asks what you’ve bought your father. Of course you don’t have anything, so you do what any good daughter would do and lie to Mom, hang up quickly, and run to the card store. The only thing left there are a few of those terrible cards that suggest Fathers are walking banks for their daughters. As for a gift, you can’t get him a tie, because even if dear old Dad did wear ties, that gift became a joke years ago. My perpetual fallback: a book. And what is the dad-est of Dad books? Books with maps. (Leave the not-asking-for-directions joke for your Mom.)

Here’s a few of my favorite books of or about maps:

Cartopraphia
Maps: Finding Our Place In The World
The Agile Rabbit Book of Historical and Curious Maps
Mapping Boston (also available in paperback)
Transit Maps of the World
Atlases of all kinds!
Psycho Geography
How To Lie With Maps
Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer