A New Chart of the World on Mercator's Projection with the Tracks of the Most Celebrated and Recent Navigators.

Original large-format map of the world on Mercator's projection (130 x 198 cm), engraved by John Dower and with fine original colour, sectionalised and laid onto two sections of linen as issued, each edged with green silk and measuring 130 x 99 cm, folding between publisher's original morocco covers (38 x 27 cm) with gilt foliate frame enclosing gilt title, marbled endpapers. Some very faint occasional foxing, upper cover with scratch mark to lower centre, overall a particularly fine example of this impressive map. Fine large format map of the world, which provides fantastic detail throughout, engraved by John Dower and published by Henry Teesdale. It is one of the few English maps to recognise the Republic of Texas (England itself did not), and depict its most ambitious boundaries. It is also the most complete map to show a complete northwest passage following the Deese-Simpson Expedition. Perhaps the most interesting part of the map is its treatment of the search for the Northwest Passage and the extensive annotations showing the routes of various discoverers throughout the world. With respect to the Northwest Passage, there are dozens of annotations identifying the British and other discoveries in the region, with section of text describing Arctic exploration up to 1833 and then additional notes on the map discussing discoveries up to October 1839, noting: "This Coast was Explored by Messrs. Dease and Simpson under the Honble. Hudson's Bay Company which completes the North West Passage Octr. 1839" Off the coast of Alaska, a number of different tracks of exploration are shown, up to Captain Beechey in 1826, with a further note in the interior further discussing P.W. Deawe and Thos. Simpson's expedition beginning at Fort Chipewyan June 1, 1837, traveling north to the Arctic Sea and then to Alaska. In the Southern Hemisphere, there are a number of early Antarctic discoveries shown. Teesdale was a London-based map publisher. He was an early Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, elected in 1830. Teesdale partnered with John Hordan and William Colling Hodson, but this arrangement dissolved in 1832. Afterward, he continued to work on his own and periodically with colleagues like John Crane Dower, Christopher Greenwood, Josiah Henshall and others. He published a variety of atlases and separately-issued maps. His business was quite successful, as he registered as a partner in the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1845.…