Hooker, William

Engraved map (11 5/8 x 13 3/4 in.; 293 x 250 mm), contemporary partial handcoloring. Accompanied by a copy of A Visit to Texas.





Map handsomely framed with UVIII Plexiglass. Lightly soiled, trimmed close to neatline at right margin, some marginal restoration. A Visit to Texas with four engraved plates; foxed and with occasional marginal restoration; recased in publisher's green cloth gilt, rubbed and repaired. Brown cloth folding-case.

Clark, Old South 3:114; Graff 1336; Howes T145; Jenkins, Basic Texas Books 209; Streeter, Texas 1155; Streeter sale 1:330

An important early map of Texas, depicting the entire territory, including present-day Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, and one of the first maps of the area to identify the vast land grants awarded to the first settlers. Indian territories are also identified as are grounds of buffalo and wild cattle.  This map was issued in the anonymous Visit to Texas: Being the Journal of a Traveller through those Parts Most interesting to American Settlers (New York: Goodrich and Wiley, 1834), a copy of which accompanies the map. The text—which, according to Howes has variously been attributed to a Col. Morris and to a Dr. M. Fiske—is a fresh and intriguing account of contemporary Texas, with "fine descriptions of natural scenery, prairies, some natural history, and … political conditions" (Clark). ''This anonymous work is one of the most important accounts of Texas during a critical period in its history'' (Jenkins).