Australia, New Zealand & Pacific Map 1958 Atlas Print - Sydney, Auckland, Norfolk Island

John Bartholomew, the Edinburgh cartographer who held a royal appointment under George V, edited this map of Australia and the South-West Pacific for The Times Atlas of the World, Mid-Century Edition, published in 1958 by Houghton Mifflin in Boston and John Bartholomew & Son in London. The atlas ran to five volumes between 1955 and 1959, with 122 colored double-page sheets and an index of more than 200,000 names; this is page 10 of volume one, printed by William Clowes & Son. Its character is that of the best mid-century reference mapping, with relief in gradient tints and spot heights in feet, ocean depth in shading and soundings in meters, and insets for Macquarie, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. It covers Australia, New Zealand and the South-West Pacific islands, and in 1958 Australia and New Zealand were both Commonwealth realms allied with the United States under the ANZUS treaty.

The insets show three small outposts, each with its own story. Macquarie Island lies about halfway from Tasmania to Antarctica, and an Australian research station was set up there in 1948; Lord Howe Island is a volcanic island off the coast of New South Wales; and Norfolk Island, an Australian territory since 1914, was resettled in 1856 by descendants of the Bounty mutineers from Pitcairn. On the main sheet Australia and New Zealand sit among the many islands of the South-West Pacific, with political boundaries, major cities, mountain ranges and bodies of water. Water depths are drawn in varying shades of blue, so the seas around the continent and New Zealand read as clearly as the land.

A family with roots on Norfolk Island or Lord Howe Island, a veteran of the Pacific campaigns, or a collector of the great mid-century atlases would value this as a gift for a retirement or an anniversary. TheMapVault's other maps of the region are earlier: Stanford's 1926 sheet, Cram's 1925 sheet and Kiepert's 1889 Berlin map each show Australia, or Australia with New Zealand, on its own, whereas this 1958 Times sheet reaches out to the Pacific islands, with island insets and sea depths that none of them attempt. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.