#slnswmaps

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” 

― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

It’s Christmas eve, so what better time to re-visit possibly the most famous (not overtly religious) Christmas story Charles Dickens 1843 publishing blockbuster A Christmas Carol. The State Library of NSW holds three copies of the the first edition, one from the Sir William Dixson collection and two others in the Rare Book Collection, one purchased by the Library and another subsequently donated as part of the Donald MacPherson collection. 

A post by the The New York Public Library about Dickens’s other Christmas stories prompted the Rare Book librarians to take a look at two other novellas held in the collection, Dickens’ fifth Christmas tale A Cricket on the Hearth (published December 20 1845, this is the second edition soon after in 1846) and his eighth and last The Haunted Man or the Ghost’s Bargain (1848 first edition). 

Whilst The Cricket turns to domestic themes The Haunted Man returns to the intervention of a ghostly figure to transform the spirit of a cynical man. Although not as well remembered today, both were huge successes at the time of publication, produced just in time for the Christmas market with Dickens having often only starting to draft the stories less than 6 weeks before printing. Both later novellas were produced as plays with the Christmas Eve 1862 production of The Haunted Man being memorable for the first known stage use of the Pepper’s Ghost illusion technique. These, like other Dickens’s Christmas stories, use personal transformation via miraculous intervention towards the appreciation of goodness and the simple pleasures in life as a theme.

Merry Christmas to all our followers! 

Plan of the proposed docks and the line of a canal with a collateral cut on the Surrey side of the River Thames [cartographic material] / surveyed by order of the Committee deputed for the inhabitants of Southwark by C. J. Craklow.

Published:  [London] : Luke Howard & Sons, [1799].  1 map : col. ; 38 x 49 cm.  [Scale not given ] (W 00°07' 00/N 51°30' 00).   

Map of part of the colony of Port Phillip [cartographic material] : exhibiting the situation and extent of the sections of land marked off for sale at Sydney on the 12th September 1838 / engraved & published by J. Cross.

London : J. Cross, 1839. 1 map : hand col. ; 31.2 x 26.1 c, 42.3 x 34 cm.  Scale [1:31,680]. 1/2 an inch to 1 mile (E 144°89'00"--E 144°99'00"/S 37°77'00"--S 37°85'00"). 

Cadastral map of the colony at Port Phillip in Victoria showing parishes, sections and acreages of land to be sold, reserves and towns. Chronologically the last of the four known variations; the scale bar now shows divisions.

Scientia terrarum et coelorum by Samuel Dunn d.1794

Published:  London : Printed for Rob.t Sayer, 1772. Format: 1 map : col. ; 2 hemispheres each 58.5 cm. in diam., on sheet 105 x 125 cm.

Notes: "London, Printed for Rob.t Sayer, Map & Printseller, No. 53 in Fleet Street, as the Act directs, 20th November 1772." 

"S. Dunn Teacher of the Mathematics LONDON. Boards Young Gentlemen, & Teacheth Pennmannship, Merch.ts, Acc.ts, Navigation, Fortification, Astronomy &c. CHELSEA". Pasted text on top left part: "1, 2. Map of the World, in two Hemispheres, wherein that of Monsieur D'Anville is comprised, with every Discovery, Addition, and Improvement, down to the present Time; to which are joined astronomical and hydrographical Delineations, by Samuel Dunn, Mathematician.

Dunn's 1772 world map on two hemispheres, showing the discoveries in South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica to 1770. 

Later with an English title, this largest world map ever published in an atlas was produced (with updates mainly in the southern hemisphere) for many decades. This first ed. 1772 was the first published, and the second printed map ever to show James Cook's east coast of New South Wales, and the discoveries in New Zealand. The space available around the hemispheres was densely utilised for celestial hemispheres, solar system, map of the moon, tables and educational text.

Copy of a chart shewing the inundation at the Hawkesbury March 22nd, 23rd, & 24th, 1806. Enclosure No. 2 / P.G.K. [Phillip Gidley King]. Scale not given (E 150°12'00"--E 151°06'00"/S 33°18'00"--S 33°59'00"). Reproduced from Historical records of New South Wales Sydney, [N.S.W.] : William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, 1898.

On this day, June 28th, 1789 Captain Arthur Phillip led a party to follow the course of the Hawkesbury River in the hopes of finding fertile land for crops upstream.

This is a digital reproduction of a facsimile of a map by Governor Phillip Gidley King, drawn in 1806 and published in 1898. The map shows the inundation of the Hawkesbury by flood. The map is 'Enclosure No. 2', within volume VI, of the Historical Records of New South Wales. A zoomable version may be seen here. This map records area of land where many much needed crops for the young colony were destroyed.

Includes waterways, allotments and landowner names. Relief shown by land form drawing. Area: From 'Cowpasture', [Camden, New South Wales], through Mt Hunter, Richmond Hill and to the Hawkesbury River. Among landowners named are, "Mr McArthur" [John Macarthur?] and "Mr. Davidson".

Collaroy Park Estate Narrabeen. No boundaries shown. 7th Oct. 1912. Richardson and Wrench LTD. Auctioneers. 

Part of [Collaroy subdivision plans] [cartographic material] Scales differ (E 151°17'04"--E 151°17'04"/S 33°42'54"--S 33°43'54").

The State Library holds thousands of suburban and town subdivision plans.  These are mostly real estate agents’ advertisements or surveyors’ sketches created between the 1880s and 1930s as large estates were broken up and sold. Many of them are beautiful pictorial records of the subdivision.  

They were often pasted onto telegraph poles and placed in shop fronts to entice people to the auction.  Some are annotated with sales prices and block sizes. They are a great source for local and family historians, heritage consultants and those interested in the history of their house.

A map of Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour, New South Wales by Adrian Feint. Published in The home annual, 1st October, 1935.

1 map : col. ; 24 x 41 cm, on sheet 29 x 44 cm. Publisher: Art in Australia, Sydney.

Plan of Darlinghurst Gaol, 1891 / Henry Louis Bertrand.  1 drawing : pen and ink ; 32.5 x 49.5 cm.  

This and an accompanying sketch were received together in wrapping paper on which is written 'watercolour drawings by H. Bertrand Darlinghurst 7-12.91'.

Unsigned and untitled. Presented by Mrs. D. Gunton, January 1983. A zoomable version of the plan may be seen here.