The Island of Lost Maps : A Story of Cartographic Crime - Softcover

Miles Harvey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753813157 ISBN 13: 9780753813157

Publisher: Phoenix Paperbacks, 2002

Synopsis

In December 1995 Gilbert Bland was chased from a rare book room of Johns Hopkins University, clutching a 232-year-old map. He turned out to be one of the greatest map thieves in history. Miles Harvey traced Bland's journey from middle-class anonymity to dark criminality, to understand what drove Bland to steal some of the rarest cartographic treasures in the world. Since men have drawn maps, others have stolen them. Columbus discovered America with the help of charts purloined from the Portuguese; Francis Drake shattered Spain's hold of the Americas and made smooth passage to the East Indies with captured Spanish maps. Miles Harvey returns to the libraries whose collections were so depleted by Gilbert Bland's thieving, to try to fill the gaps in this enigmatic man's life.

About this title

About the Author:

Miles Harvey writes for a variety of American journals and newspapers. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and was a finalist in the 1997 National Magazine Award in the Special Interest Category for an article on which this book is based.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phoenix Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0753813157
• ISBN 13: 9780753813157
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432