In about 1732 Henry Overton (1676?-1751) and John Hoole (d.1734) published nine maps of southern English counties on two sheets of paper intended to be joined. They included Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and the Isle of Wight. They are the ONLY COUNTIES EVER PRINTED in this aborted scheme. As Hodson points out it was a common practice at the time to produce maps for wall decoration, Willdey being a particular proponent of this medium. There are clues to the fact that this was their intention. There was a title which ran across the whole which read ‘Nine New & Accurate Maps’ and the nature of the layout of three rows of three maps meant that the central column’s maps were split over the two sheets, not an ideal solution if you were intending selling the maps loose. They are engraved by Richard William Seale whose signature appeared lower right outside the margin. Cartographically they are derived from the work of Herman Moll in 1724, although here in the Sussex map there is an error of transcription where ‘Echingham’ is engraved as ‘Echinghamn’. Instead of placing the antiquities depicted either side of the Moll maps they chose to illustrate coats of arms drawn from the end of each section of the ‘Magna Britannia’ 1720, missing here. Although it is believed Overton and Hoole worked in partnership from about 1724 to 1734 Seale’s earliest work dates to 1732, hence a circa date of 1732 is applied to this work. The set is INCREDIBLY RARE with only three examples known, two in the British Library and one in a private English collection. In all our years’ experience we have only seen two individual maps available. Provenance: private English collection. Refer Armitage (2012) p. 196; Hodson I Appendix I p.182; Shirley T.Hoo 1a; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).