In the ‘London Evening Post’ for 21-23 July 1747 was an advert stating that ‘Now Engraving, In a beautiful Manner, and of proper Size to carry in the Pocket, or to bind with the Tour … A Complete Set of Maps of all the Counties in England, Scotland, and Wales … on a larger Scale than any Pocket Map hitherto publish’d’. The ‘Tour’ referred to is the well-known book by Daniel Defoe, it was partly owned by the same publishers. ‘Tour Thro’ … Great Britain’ was his second most successful work following that of Robinson Crusoe. It is an account of his own travels throughout the land. He did however draw on the writings of others such as William Camden and John Strype. First published in 1724 there were several ensuing editions. The atlas was Thomas Hutchinson’s ‘Geographia Magnae Britanniae’ of 1748. After extensive searching only two auction records could be found for Defoe’s work with the maps. A 1753 edition at a Dominic Winter auction in 2011 and another at Sotheby’s in 1948 in which the maps in the first edition of the atlas were bound uniformly with the four volume Defoe in the 1753 edition. This example has the second issue of the atlas bound into the 1753 Defoe edition.

There appears to have been a minor delay in the first issue of the atlas as it was not advertised as being complete until the ‘General Evening Post’ of 8-10 November 1748. It was advertised as ‘Geographia Magnae Britanniae: Or, Ninety-Four Correct Maps Of All The Counties in England, Scotland, and Wales’. Despite naming Scotland in the title the two atlases were made available separately and we may normally find England and Wales together. Numerous adverts were placed in the ensuing months and no doubt this was due to the competition of Thomas Badeslade & William Toms’ ‘Chorographia Britanniae’ and the Thomas Kitchin and Thomas Jeffery’s ‘Small English Atlas’. For this second edition, the maps are entirely unaltered but whilst the title page retains the 1748 date the list of publishers is altered. This has led to bibliographers applying the date c.1756 to its issue. There were seven publishers originally in the title cartouche namely: S. Birt, T. Osborne, D. Browne, I. Hodges, I. Osborne, A. Millar and I. Robinson. John Osborne had ‘left off Trade’ by November 1751 and Samuel Birt died in November 1755 leading to a new edition of the atlas being issued quite probably the following year. A further support for the dating comes from the 1756 dated edition of the ‘Geographia Scotiae’.

The maps of England and Wales and Gloucestershire in the atlas are signed by Thomas Hutchinson as engraver and although there are similarities in style with the remainder of the maps Hodson does not believe he was responsible for them all. The ‘By a Gentleman’ on the Defoe title page refers of course to Daniel Defoe. There are two issues of the ‘Tour …’ dated 1753, one with 6 publishers named as here and one with ten. The Scottish section and its accompanying 33 maps are all in the fourth volume. Provenance: with manuscript ownership inscription of ‘Thomas W. Oliver September 1855’ on front endpaper of first three volumes; unidentified bookplate of a lion’s head pasted inside upper cover to each volume; acquired by private English collection in 2008. Chubb (1927) 189 & Scotland 15; ESTC T70853; Hodson (1984-97) 205 & 207.