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1837 Phelps Pocket Map of New York City (Manhattan)
NewYorkCity-phelps-1837$500.00
Title
Strangers Guide Through the City of New York, with the latest Improvements.
1837 (dated) 17 x 20 in (43.18 x 50.8 cm) 1 : 10500
1837 (dated) 17 x 20 in (43.18 x 50.8 cm) 1 : 10500
Description
A scarce map of 1837 map New York City issued by Humphrey Phelps. This map details the southern part of Manhattan from the battery to 14th Street, though it technically extends, though with less detail, all the way to 41st street. Phelps identifies all streets, parks, and piers. Numeric tables to the left and right of the map proper also provide reference to public offices, museums, markets, hospitals, and churches. Phelps copyrighted this map in 1830 - though no known examples seem to have survived of the first edition - and it may well be his first published map. Subsequent editions were issued until about 1841, by which time the map had become outdated due to New York's rapid expansion northwards. It is also notably one of the few maps that Phelps produced without a partner. The present edition dates to 1837.
Cartographer
Humphrey Phelps (1799 - 1875) was an American map, broadside, and book publisher based in New York City. Phelps was born in 1799 in Hebron, Connecticut. Phelps' earliest work seems to be a plan of New York City for his Stranger's Guide, dating to about 1830. Between 183- and 1837 he published with Bela Scovil Squire (1786 - 1861) under the imprint of Phelps and Squire. The New York map publishing circle seems to have been quite close and Phelps commonly partnered with various other New York publishers and printers including Edward H. Ensign (1818 - 1871), Horace Thayer, Erastus Clark Bridgman (1817 - 1870), Thomas C. Fanning (1805 - 1873), Hooker, Peabody, Charles Magnus, Gaylord Watson, and George Walker, among others. The natural consequence of his rampant partnering is a vast and varied corpus of work including many scarce items with low print runs. Phelps is best known for his emigrant and tourist guides. More by this mapmaker...
Condition
Very good. Some wear and loss on original fold lines - especially a fold intersections. Repaired, flattened, and backed with archival tissue. Removed from but sold with original leather binder.
References
New York Public Library, Map Div. 01-1795. Haskell, D., Manhattan Maps A Co-operative List, 852.