Description
This is a later edition of a map originally engraved by William Hooker as a foldout map for Edmund M. Blunt’s Blunt’s Stranger’s Guide to the City of New-York issued in 1817 — one of the earliest guidebooks to the City. According to publication information on the offered map, it was copyrighted in 1827 by A.T. Goodrich, engraved for the Strangers Guide of New York, and published by Goodrich. The first edition of Goodrich’s Strangers Guide was issued in 1828. Insofar as this map is dated 1832 in the title cartouche, and originally folded as issued, it presumably is from a later Goodrich Strangers Guide, about 1832 or perhaps slightly thereafter.
William Hooker was an engraver, particularly of maps and charts. He moved from Philadelphia to Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1805 and worked there with Gideon Fairman, a banknote engraver. In 1810 he returned to Philadelphia, and then to New York City in 1815, where he started as an apprentice to Edmund March Blunt (1770-1862), the publisher of the American Coastal Pilot and seller of nautical books, charts and instruments. Hooker married Blunt’s daughter and took over the business when Blunt retired in 1822. He remained active in New York City until 1846 as a map engraver, printer, and publisher, best known for his pocket plans of the New York City and Brooklyn.
A.T. Goodrich and Co. was a prolific New York publisher of maps and guide books in the first half of the 19th Century. They are also known for being the first American publisher of puzzle maps; in 1818 they produced a “new and elegant” Dissected Map of the United States.
Full publication information: Entered according to Act, of Congress, the 11th Day of January 1827 by A.T. Goodrich of the State of New York. Engraved for the Strangers Guide New York. Published by A.T. Goodrich.
Condition: Generally very good, original issued folded, now recently professionally cleaned and deacidified, also flattened, with light remaining toning, wear, handling. Margins a bit short, very likely as issued.
References:
Groce, George C. and Wallace, David H. The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. p. 325.
“The Picture of New-York, and Stranger’s Guide to the Commercial Metropolis of the United States.” Archive.org. https://archive.org/details/ldpd_11290306_000/page/n541/mode/2up (30 March 2021).
