FIRST EDITION. In 1820 Samuel Leigh (fl.1812-d.31) published ‘Leigh’s New Picture of England and Wales’, a miniature county atlas which proved a success. He engaged the services of Sidney Hall (1788?-1831) to engrave a series of maps derived from those of John Cary. Hall was a prolific engraver of the period and according to Worms and Baynton-Williams ‘was almost certainly the first engraver to use the new harder steel plates for map work, using plates manufactured by the Jacob Perkins process as early as 1821’. In 1825 Leigh published an accompanying ‘New Pocket Road Book’ which can be found alone or bound with this atlas. Later editions of the atlas are rarely found without the road book. Another work that Leigh published in 1820 is entitled the ‘Picture of England and Wales’. It included one general map only but stated ‘The proprietor has availed himself of the talents of Mr. Sidney Hall to project a series of correct county maps, the same size as this book, which may be had in a separate volume, with a complete Index of the towns, villages, etc.’. Provenance: small label affixed inside front board, upper corner ‘Sold by Bowdery & Kerby, 190 Oxford Street’; private English collection. Chubb (1927) 373; Tooley’s Dictionary (1999-2004); Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).