St Helena. G.S.G.S. No. 1853A. Second Edition dated 1941. Ordnance Survey printing of 500 copies, 1959.

St Helena. G.S.G.S. No. 1853A. Second Edition dated 1941. Ordnance Survey printing of 500 copies, 1959. Large colour-printed British government topographical map of the entire island of St Helena, measuring 64.2 × 88.7 cm and produced at the highly detailed scale of 1:25,344 or 2½ inches to one statute mile. Originally published by the War Office in 1904, the sheet carries the designation Second Edition, 1941, while the printer’s information on this particular example records an Ordnance Survey printing in 1959 in a stated run of only 500 copies; it is therefore correctly described as a 1959 printing of the Second Edition dated 1941 rather than as a physical 1941 printing. The map gives exceptionally detailed complete-island coverage, including Jamestown, James Bay, Longwood, Ladder Hill, Deadwood, Sandy Bay, Plantation House, Prosperous Bay and Rupert’s Valley, together with roads, tracks, settlements, buildings, watercourses, coastal features and the island’s dramatic mountainous relief. The 1941 edition date gives the cartography an important Second World War association: St Helena maintained military defences and supported British naval and communications activity in the South Atlantic, while in October 1941 the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker RFA Darkdale was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-68 in James Bay. The present impression itself was printed later, in 1959, and no claim is made for wartime use. St Helena is also internationally famous as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte’s final exile from 1815 until his death in 1821 and occupies an important place in British imperial and maritime history. An example of G.S.G.S. 1853A, Second Edition, is recorded in the former Foreign & Commonwealth Office archive inventory with the date 1941, although the inventory does not identify the impression date of that particular copy. At the time of cataloguing we have been unable to trace another clearly identified example of this 1959 printing of 500 copies currently offered commercially. Very good condition, complete, with strong printed detail and attractive colour, light handling, minor creasing and slight marginal marking.…