The Island of Lost Maps Read online

  Have you been surprised by the response to The Island of Lost Maps?

  Well, I would not have guessed that so many people would be interested in a book that’s basically about libraries. I’ve also been a bit taken aback that The Island of Lost Maps has turned out to be something of a controversial book, with adamant proponents and detractors among readers and critics alike. But I set out to write a cross-genre book: part true-crime story, part history of cartography, part journey of self-discovery. It turned out a bit like one of those hybrid monsters at the edges of old maps. So I suppose I shouldn’t be too shocked that not everyone agrees what the beast is or whether it’s beautiful.

  What’s up next for you as a writer?

  I’m not sure yet. I have a bunch of book ideas, several of them having to do with people who, like those in The Island of Lost Maps, are monomaniacal about a certain subject. Perhaps it says something about how dull my own existence is, but I seem to have an obsession with other people’s obsessions.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION: STRANGE WATERS

  1 “HOUTMAN CORNELIUS” Carl Waldman and Alan Wexler, Who Was Who in World Exploration (New York: Facts on File, 1992), p. 327.

  2 mappery William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act I, sc. 3, line 205.

  3 “black rock” See John Goss, The Mapmaker’s Art: An Illustrated History of Cartography (Skokie, Ill.: Rand McNally, 1993), p. 95. See also Steven Frimmer, Neverland: Fabled Places and Fabulous Voyages of History and Legend (New York: Viking Press, 1976), p. 83.

  4 “No foreign ship” George Masselman, The Cradle of Colonialism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 62.

  5 the Portuguese quietly discovered Australia See William Eisler, The Furthest Shore: Images of Terra Australis from the Middle Ages to Captain Cook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 17–36.

  6 Beach, Lucach, and Maletur See ibid., p. 37. See also Raymond H. Ramsay, No Longer on the Map: Discovering Places That Never Were (New York: Viking Press, 1972), pp. 36–41.

  7 “The route itself” Masselman, Cradle of Colonialism, pp. 62–63.

  8 “the vanguard of the age” Ibid., p. 87.

  9 “speculation in a totally modern fashion” Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce, vol. 2: Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 100.

  10 Secret Atlas See Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps (Boston: Little, Brown, 1949), p. 148.

  11 most profitable export See Allen M. Sievers, The Mystical World of Indonesia: Culture and Economic Development in Conflict (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), pp. 89–99. See also Heinrich Eduard Jacob, Coffee: The Epic of a Commodity, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (New York: Viking Press, 1935), pp. 107–121.

  12 koffie … kopi I could find no reference source containing the exact etymology of the Malay-Indonesian word kopi. But Cornell University’s John U. Wolff, editor of An Indonesian-English Dictionary, informed me that kopi was “most likely a loan word” from the Dutch koffie. This view was generally supported by a number of other scholars I contacted.

  13 “TAMARAC, FLA.” Anonymous author, Knight-Ridder/Tribune story, “Police on the Trail of a Map Thief: Florida Antique Shop Owner Is Suspected,” Chicago Tribune (December 21, 1995): 14.

  14 “Now when I was a little chap …” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, ed. Stanley Appelbaum (1902; reprint, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1990), p. 5.

  15 the bizarre case of Stephen Carrie Blumberg See Nicholas A. Basbanes’s account in A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), pp. 465–519.

  16 the flesh of Egyptian mummies See Annick Le Guérer’s Scent: The Mysterious and Essential Powers of Smell, trans. Richard Miller (New York: Turtle Bay Books, 1992), pp. 87–96.

  17 ‘Alas, poor Egypt!” Quoted in ibid., p. 90.

  CHAPTER ONE: MR. PEABODY AND MR. NOBODY

  1 “There is no other library” Daniel Mark Epstein, “Mr. Peabody and His Athenaeum,” New Criterion, vol. 14, no. 2 (October 1995): 21–28. All quotations attributed to Epstein in the chapter come from this article—as does some of the historical material, both here and in Chapter Four.

  2 “a cathedral of books” See Guide to the Archives of the Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore: 1857–1977, comp. Elizabeth Schaaf (Baltimore: Archives of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, 1987), p. 17. more than $7 million See Elizabeth Schaaf, “George Peabody: His Life and Legacy, 1795–1869,” Maryland Historical Magazine, vol. 90, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 269–285. See also Carl Schoettler, “Banker Gave Baltimore a Musical Institute and the Gift of Giving,” Baltimore Sun (February 16, 1995): 1E.

  3 “the most liberal philanthropist” Quoted in Schaaf, “George Peabody.”

  4 “Deprived as I was” Quoted in Franklin Parker, George Peabody: A Biography, rev. ed. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995), p. 25. “I hope may become useful” George Peabody, “Founding Letter,” in Guide to the Archives, p. 58.

  5 “perhaps grander in its original design” Parker, George Peabody, p. 91.

  6 “for the free use of all persons” Peabody, “Founding Letter,” p. 59.

  7 “the best works on every subject” Ibid.

  8 “to satisfy the researches” Ibid.

  9 “Taking advantage of the delay” Guide to the Archives, pp. 15–17. Although she is listed as the compiler of this pamphlet, Schaaf informed me that she was, in fact, the author of the section quoted.

  10 “should be guarded” Peabody, “Founding Letter,” p. 59.

  11 a red notebook A photocopy of this notebook was provided to me by a source who wished to remain anonymous.

  12 “like a small candle” The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492–1493, trans. Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. 59. The admiral’s journal from the first voyage has been missing since 1554. We know its contents thanks to this abstract, made by Bartolomé de Las Casas in the early sixteenth century.

  13 “Or was the mysterious light” John Noble Wilford, The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. 130. 14 “Great Washington” Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, The Whale (1851; reprint, New York: Modern Library, 1992), p. 222.

  CHAPTER TWO: IMAGINARY CREATURES

  1 “Demons assaulted ships” Quoted in Donald S. Johnson, Phantom Islands of the Atlantic: The Legends of Seven Lands That Never Were, rev. ed. (New York: Walker, 1996), pp. 28–43.

  2 “one-eyed men” The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492–1493, trans. Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. 133.

  3 “were not as pretty” Ibid., p. 321.

  4 “back and breasts were like a woman’s” Henry Hudson, “A Second Voyage or Employment of Master Henry Hudson,” in Donald S. Johnson, Charting the Sea of Darkness: The Four Voyages of Henry Hudson (New York: Kodansha International, 1995), p. 60.

  5 “It is easy enough to move” Steven Frimmer, Neverland: Fabled Places and Fabulous Voyages of History and Legend (New York: Viking Press, 1976), p. 18. For a more scholarly work on the same subject, see Percy G. Adams, Travelers and Travel Liars: 1660–1800 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962).

  6 “It is a wonder” Quoted in Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), p. 21. The passage is from Las Casas’s History of the Indies, for which no complete English translation is available. I use translations from various authors.

  7 “unlikely, even allowing for exaggeration” Frances Wood, Did Marco Polo Go to China? (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), p. 149.

  8 hugely influential See C.W.R.D. Moseley’s introduction to the Penguin edition of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1983
), pp. 9–39.

  9 “good Christian men” Ibid., p. 173.

  10 “I, John Mandeville” Ibid., p. 123.

  11 “who live just on the smell” Ibid., p. 137. 22 “as big as dogs” Ibid., p. 183. 22 “a kind of fruit” Ibid., p. 165.

  12 “He was an unredeemable fraud” Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 31.

  13 “The abundant identifying marks” Ibid., pp. 33–34.

  14 “I applied for a credit card” Transcript from The People of the State of California vs. Gilbert Anthony Bland, aka Jack Arnett, aka Jason Michael Pike, Municipal Court of the San Diego Judicial District, October 3, 1973.

  15 “The Clerk” Ibid.

  16 The defendant was born Birth records on file with the Marion County, Ind., Health Department.

  17 “It must show the area near the treasure” Franklin W. Dixon, The Clue in the Embers (1955; reprint, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1972), p. 106.

  18 “Wowee! What a treasure!” Ibid., p. 162.

  19 “These treasures are certainly government property!” Ibid., p. 163.

  20 “We don’t expect a reward” Ibid., p. 174.

  21 “There is a disturbing darkness” Frank McLynn, Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 199.

  22 “The doctor opened the seals” Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883; reprint, Cleveland: World Publishing, 1946), p. 62.

  23 “monstrous imposter” Ibid., p. 278. “prodigious villain” Ibid.

  24 “bland, polite, obsequious seaman” Ibid., p. 279.

  25 “figure whose personality swings” Ian Bell, Dreams of Exile: Robert Louis Stevenson, a Biography (New York: Henry Holt, 1992), pp. 150–151.

  26 “It was a strange collection” Stevenson, Treasure Island, p. 281.

  27 “two old, dirty, and ragged charts” James Fenimore Cooper, The Sea Lions, or, The Lost Sealers (1849; reprint, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896), p. 50.

  28 “very considerable amount of treasure” Ibid., p. 35.

  29 “no dangers, no toil” Ibid., p. 314. 32 “I’m afraid that” Ibid., p. 410.

  30 “half-way belief” Ibid., p. 381.

  31 “a little more than two thousand dollars” Ibid., p. 454.

  32 “Seeing the impossibility of restoring the gold” Ibid.

  33 “the greatest literary mystery” Paul Theroux, “Solving the Traven Mystery,” Sunday Times of London (June 22, 1980): 44.

  34 “Here was someone” Karl S. Guthke, B. Traven: The Life Behind the Legends, trans. Robert C. Sprung (Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991), p. 12.

  35 “One of the maps” B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1935; reprint, New York: Signet, 1968), p. 68.

  36 “that eternal curse on gold” Ibid., p. 76.

  37 Maps spoke to me Charles Baxter’s superb essay “Talking Forks: Fiction and the Inner Life of Objects” helped me to clarify my thoughts on this subject. See Baxter, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction (St. Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1997), pp. 79–108.

  38 “It is almost as if one had to read” Arthur H. Robinson and Barbara Bartz Petchenik, The Nature of Maps: Essays Toward Understanding Maps and Mapping (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 45.

  39 “infinite, eloquent suggestion” Robert Louis Stevenson, “My First Book,” in The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays, ed. Jeremy Treglown (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988), p. 283. All further quotations from Stevenson in the chapter come from this short essay. “napkin of the world” See David Woodward, “Medieval Mappaemundi,” in The History of Cartography, vol. 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. J. B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987-), p. 287.

  40 the various monstrous races See chart in ibid., p. 331.

  41 “Like the earth of a hundred years ago” Aldous Huxley, Heaven and Hell (London: Chatto & Windus, 1956), p. 9.

  42 “the antipodes of the mind” Ibid., p. 16. “strange psychological creatures” Ibid., p. 11.

  43 “an Old World of personal consciousness” Ibid., p. 10.

  44 “the mind’s far continents” Ibid., p. 84.

  CHAPTER THREE: THE MAP MOGUL

  1 “pitched fine art” Hugh Kennedy, Original Color (New York: Nan A. Talese, 1996), p. 177. 55 “These Old Maps” Karen Hube, “These Old Maps Offer You a New Way to Double Your Money,” Money, vol. 26, no. 3 (March 1997): 172.

  2 the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America drummed him See Mark Singer’s “Profiles: Wall Power,” in New Yorker, vol. 63, no. 41 (November 30, 1987): 44–46ff. Some of the other information used in this chapter also comes from Singer’s excellent article.

  3 “I said, ‘Graham, what are you doing?’ ” Quoted in ibid.

  4 reportedly sent a check for $8,000 See Associated Press story, “Rare Map of Houston, Missing Since ’88, Is Returned,” Dallas Morning News (June 4, 1996): 16D.

  5 If you wanted to buy this volume in 1884 See chart in R. A. Skelton, Maps: A Historical Survey of Their Study and Collecting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 59. In addition to the prices mentioned here, the 1984 figure was supplied by Sotheby’s.

  6 “More than any one of the ancients” Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps (Boston: Little, Brown, 1949), p. 61.

  7 “grinding persistence” John Hale, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance (New York: Atheneum, 1994), pp. 193, 190.

  8 “Please, if you love me” Quoted in Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), p. 72.

  9 “insatiable desire” Ibid.

  10 “rare, valuable, or merely strange objects” Hale, Civilization of Europe, p. 530.

  11 “caused an immediate and enormous stir” Thomas Goldstein, Dawn of Modern Science: From the Ancient Greeks to the Renaissance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), p. 22.

  12 ‘Apart from the extravagant Bibles” Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (New York: Nan A. Talese, 1996), p. 205.

  13 “The revival of Ptolemy” Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself (New York: Random House, 1983), p. 152. “toward the regions of India” Passport issued by Spanish sovereigns, quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, A.D. 1492–1616 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 43.

  14 “were not housed according to their worth” Quoted in John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Revival of Learning, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907), p. 99.

  15 “For him that steals” Quoted in Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (New York: Viking Press, 1996), p. 244.

  16 Christie’s conceded the volume had been stolen See Susannah Herbert, “International: 1477 Ptolemy Atlas Stolen from Library,” Daily Telegraph of London (November 7, 1997), as well as an unsigned Reuters story, “Stolen Rare Book by Ptolemy Recovered in London” (May 29, 1998).

  17 nearly $800,000 This figure includes buyer’s premiums and taxes.

  18 computer financial crimes See Douglas Pasternak and Bruce B. Auster, “Terrorism at the Touch of a Keyboard,” U.S. News & World Report, vol. 125, no. 2 (July 13, 1998): 37.

  CHAPTER FOUR: AN APPROACHING STORM

  1 “The Spanish sailors” Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself(New York: Random House, 1983), p. 217.

  2 “just wanted them” Cynthia Requardt, text from briefing given to fellow rare books librarians during a panel on the Bland case, June 23, 1998.

  3 Murders had risen nearly 9 percent See Peter Hermann, “Violent Crime in Md. Rising,” Baltimore Sun (December 30, 1995): 1B.

  4 “We were advised” Quoted in Frank D. Roylance and David Folkenflik, “Thief Cutting Rare Book at Peabody Was Let Go; FBI Seeks Ma
n Linked Later to Similar Acts at Eight University Libraries,” Baltimore Sun (December 14, 1995): 1A.

  5 “Our goal” Quoted in John Dorsey ‘Auction of Peabody Books Draws Approval, Outrage,” Baltimore Sun (May 28, 1989): 1F. The quotations from John Burgan, Regina Soria, and Arthur Gutman also come from this article.

  6 “It put Baltimore on the world map” Frank R. Shivers, Jr., “Visit Mount Vernon” brochure, sponsored by the Charles Street Association and Mount Vernon Cultural District.

  7 “national treasure” Brian Lewbart, spokesman for Downtown Partnership, quoted in Paul W Valentine’s “Washington Monument Reopened in Baltimore; Structure Has Been Closed Eight Years for Repair,” Washington Post (December 5, 1992): C4. upwards of $30,000 An exact price on the Mills atlas is difficult to pin down, since the book is so rare that it does not often change hands. This estimate was made by John Duncan, a retired history professor and owner of V & J. Duncan Antique Maps and Prints in Savannah, Georgia.

  8 “On December 7” Posting on ExLibris, December 7, 1995.

  CHAPTER FIVE: HOW TO MAKE A MAP, HOW TO TAKE A MAP

  1 “others have seen” Denis Wood with John Fels, The Power of Maps (New York: Guilford Press, 1992), p. 7.

  2 “Progress in the science of cartography” Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps (Boston: Little, Brown, 1949), p. 18.

  3 “world describers” See Svetlana Alpers, “The Mapping Impulse in Dutch Art,” in Art and Cartography: Six Historical Essays, ed. David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 59. 98 “maps enable us” Quoted in ibid., p. 90. 98 copper plate for printing Most of the material in this section is based on Coolie Verner’s “Copperplate Printing,” in Five Centuries of Map Printing, ed. David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 51–75.