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CARY, John - CRUCHLEY, George Frederick
Cruchley’s County Atlas of England & Wales Shewing all the Railways & Stations with their names, also The Turnpike Roads and principal cross roads to all the cities, market and borough towns with the distance from town to town
Imprint: London, G. F. Cruchley, Map Seller & Globe Maker, 81, Fleet Street, London, 1875
Binding:
Hardback
Quarto (240 x 155 mm.), full contemporary cloth boards, ornate blind panelled boards with gilt embossed title to upper board, spine with blind ruled compartments, front free endpaper torn away. With title page, Index of maps, general map of England and Wales, 43 county maps on 44 plates (West Riding being on two plates) and both North and South Wales, 47 maps in total, all in early wash colour, the general and final maps with small centrefold split, otherwise in good condition.
George Frederick Cruchley (1797-1880) had learned his trade with Aaron Arrowsmith and began to work for himself in 1823. His early days were concentrated on publishing maps of London but following the death of John Cary in 1835, he acquired much of the stock from the surviving heirs. Cruchley made lithographic transfers from the plates until he sold them all in 1877. Cruchley’s main marketing tool was to add to the original plates, details of the railways, postal, telegraph and other useful information. These plates were originally published by Cary as the 'New and Correct English Atlas', 1809. Although quite probably acquired at an earlier date, Cruchley does not appear to have made use of them until 1863 when he published the 'County Atlas of England & Wales'. There were further editions of c.1864 and 1875. This is an example of the last dated edition of George Cruchley’s 'County Atlas of England & Wales'. All editions are rare. Provenance: original booksellers label of T. W. Arthur, Carlisle, affixed inside upper cover; private English collection. Beresiner (1983) pp. 93-5; Chubb (1927) 555; Nicholson (2003) ‘G. F. Cruchley and ‘Maps for the Million’, in 'IMCoS Journal' 93 pp. 21-38; Smith (1989b) ‘George Frederick Cruchley, 1796-1880’, in 'The Map Collector' no. 49 pp. 16-22.
Stock number:10230.
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