A VERY RARE WORK. The maps were originally published as a set of exceedingly rare card maps of the counties by Thomas Crabb. Their first atlas publication was in this ‘New Miniature Atlas’ of 1820 by Robert Miller (fl.1810-21), a publisher and bookseller. This is his one cartographic production. Miller was apprenticed to the Stationers Company in 1801 and made free in 1809. Eugene Burden reported that Miller was at the Fish Street address from 1817 to 1822.

In 1927 Chubb originally placed a date of c.1810 on this work. It was the example in the Harold Whittaker Collection which first drew attention to the catalogue of ‘Books and Fancy Articles’ bound at the end. On page nine can be seen a list of portraits including one of ‘His late Majesty George III’ along with one of ‘His Majesty George IV’. George III died 29 January 1820. There are two versions of the atlas, this is early format with a ten and a half page. All the map imprints now reflect Miller’s address and each is now numbered. The maps are bound in a curious order. Beginning with Middlesex it extends through Hertfordshire to the north, then starts again with Surrey before extending through the west ending with those of Wales.

The plates were then acquired by the great publishing house of William Darton [1755-1819], by now in the hands of his son, also William [1781-1854]. These plates were famously issued even later in the much better known atlas by Reuben Ramble (1810-75), whose name is a pseudonym for the Reverend Samuel Clark. Provenance: with the inscription of ‘Louisa Paine from a Friend Nov. 11 th. 1834’ on first front free endpaper; private English collection. Beresiner (1983) p. 154; Burden (1994) 75.ii; Carroll (1996) 74; Chubb (1927) 340; Tooley (1999-2004); Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).