- Title: Map of New-York
- Author: Sidney E. Morse
- Date: 1828
- Medium: Hand-colored engraving
- Condition: Excellent
- Inches: 15 1/2 x 12 1/2 [Image]
- Centimeters: 39.74 x 32.05 [Image]
- Product ID: 003193
MAP OF NEW-YORK ON THE IMPROVED PLAN OF SIDNEY E. MORSE, A.M. Sidney E. Morse, N. & S. S. Jocelyn, New Haven, 1828.
This fine engraved and hand-colored folding map of the state of New York is flanked on three sides by an extensive index of every city and town therein. Original leather booklet cover with gilt lettering included. Morse, an inventor, was the brother of Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the Morse code.
Sidney Edwards Morse (1794 – 1871) was an American geographer, journalist, and inventor. He shared his innovative spirit with his brother, Samuel F.B. Morse, and his father Jedidiah Morse, who published the first geography book in the United States in 1784. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, graduated from Yale College at fourteen, studied theology at Andover and law at Litchfield, and at sixteen began writing for a Boston newspaper. In 1823 he and his brother Richard established the New York Observer, which was widely hailed as the foremost religious paper in the country at the time. Morse took an active interest in science, geography and exploration. He was among the earliest to use the printing process known wax engraving, or cerography, for which he received the U.S. patent.
His best-known works are A New System of Modern Geography (1823), the North American Atlas, the Bible Atlas, and a series of general maps. For several years the sales of the two first- mentioned works averaged 70,000 copies annually, and more than 500,000 copies of his System of Modern Geography were printed.