February, 2025

Around the middle of the 19^th C, expansion of the British Empire was in full swing. Despite the Opium wars in China, unrest in India with the mutiny in 1857, and the conflicts in the 1850s and 60s in New Zealand over Māori resistance to settlement and land purchase, immigration was at the forefront of the growth of the Empire. This included colonisation schemes such as that of Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Canada and New Zealand, and along with this was a demand from the British public for information. Immigration handbooks, published accounts of new settlers and visitors to the colonies, and more general histories, full of illustrations and maps, were big business.

Map making and publication was central to this effort by London publishers and at their head was John Tallis and Co. Tallis’s company was a leading publisher of atlases, maps and engravings in the late 1830s through to the 1850s.  Their maps are notable for the inclusion of coloured engravings of scenes from the countries portrayed, such as India, China, the Cape Colony, and New Zealand.

With the possibility of life in the new colonies and beyond. We are offering  this remarkable, 12 volume set of Martin’s  The British Colonies ( #19478). The author, a noted statistician, and historian, together with maps, drawn by leading cartographer and engraver John Rapin. These volumes are complete with 39 double-page, hand-coloured ‘Tallis’ maps of the colonies.

 The ‘Tallis’ maps are particularly attractive and rare, we are offering a separate one of New Zealand (#18621). It is a finely executed steel engraving with decorative borders and vignettes, one from Charles Heaphy’s well known view of ‘Thorndon Flat and part of the City of Wellington’, another of a view of Mt Egmont and New Plymouth, a Māori head, and an early view of Auckland. It highlights Canterbury as New Zealand’s newest settlement, established by the Canterbury Association in the early 1850s. These maps provide a unique view of important historical times.