FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE IN MAGNIFICENT EARLY WASH COLOUR. Thomas Badeslade (fl.1719-1745) was a surveyor and engineer who was involved in many schemes to improve the waterways. He was also an established author and in 1742 he had William Henry Toms (fl.1723-61) engrave a series of maps from his draughts and publish them as the ‘Chorographia Britanniae’. It is the first pocket size English county atlas published in the eighteenth century. It is surprising that it took so long considering the runaway success of the ‘Britannia Depicta’ of 1720. The first edition of the atlas is found in four variants and was on sale for only a short period of time. Within two or three months a new edition was published.

The second issue placed engraved plate numbers ‘8’ and ‘9’ to those of Cambridgeshire and Cheshire which had been omitted on publication. Provenance: retaining the early bookplate of William Bell, Ulcomb, Kent, a William Bell was Rector of the church at Ulcomb from 1740; private English collection. Beresiner (1983) pp. 49-50; Chubb (1927) 170; ESTC T165385; Hodson (1984-97) no. 188 (atlas A p. 164); Shirley (2004) T.Bad 1a; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).