Le Rouge, Georges Louis

Engraved frontispiece depicting William Penn meeting with the Indians after Benjamin West, engraved title incorporating table of contents. ILLUSTRATION: 17 engraved maps (9 double-page, 8 folding, 14 with period hand-coloring in outline), maps numbered in contemporary manuscript.

Folio (21 1/16 x 15 3/4 in.; 535 x 400 mm). BINDING: Expertly bound to style in 18th century Russia over contemporary marbled paper covered boards, flat spine in seven compartments divided by gilt rules, brown morocco lettering piece in the second compartment.  PROVENANCE: Unidentified European ink stamp on title with Royal arms — Leander van Ess (1772-1847, bookplate on verso of title)

Expert repairs to lower left margins, clean splits to folds of a few maps.

Howes J81; Phillips, A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress 1212; Sabin 35954; Schwartz & Ehrenberg, Mapping of America p. 202

THE PRINCIPAL FRENCH ATLAS OF AMERICA PUBLISHED DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.The atlas was issued soon after France's entry into the war of the American Revolution and it served French commanders in the land campaigns. Le Rouge used the best large-scale general survey maps that were available including the famous John Mitchell map of North America in eight sheets. Other cornerstone American multi-sheet maps here are: Mead's New England, Montresor's New York, Scull's Pennsylvania, Fry and Jefferson's Virginia, Mouzon's Carolinas, De Brahm's Georgia (with large scale insets of Sauthier's map of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain), and Jeffery's Louisiana and East and West Florida. Remarkably complete in its geographical coverage of the Thirteen Colonies, the Atlas Ameriquain drew upon the available British sources, as published by Jefferys, Faden, Sayer and Bennett, to which Le Rouge added his own work. It became the basic source for French strategic planning and pursuit of the war.