[MAPS - GREAT LAKES REGION]. LAHONTAN, Louis Armand Baron de (1666-1715). Carte que les Gnacsitares ont Dessine sur… Carte de la Riviere Longue et de Quelques Autres qui se Dechargent dans le Grand Fleuve Missisipi… Paris, 1703.
Engraved map printed on two sheets and conjoined as issued (305 x 675 mm), some faint offsetting, else a fine example.
FIRST EDITION, LARGE COPY, OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL OF ALL MYTHICAL CARTOGRAPHIC WORKS, effecting the cartographic landscape of the Upper Mississippi, and the Plains and Rocky Mountain Regions, for nearly 50 years. First issue without page numbers nor a longitudinal scale at the top and is significantly larger to the subsequent editions that followed.
The map “purports to show the River Longue flowing from the mountains in the west where the Gnacsitares lived. The origin of this map appears to lie totally in [Lahontan’s] imagination, since the Indian tribes he showed on the map were quite fictitious. There is little doubt that this large river, leading from the west, fired the imagination of many of his readers, since as has been repeatedly emphasized here, the early exploration of the Americas is inextricably linked with the quest for a route to the Orient” (Kershaw). Several famous cartographers perpetrated the myth of the River Longue flowing into the Mississippi River even further including Del’Isle’s 1703 Carte Du Canada ou De La Nouvelle France and Chatelain’s 1719 Carte Particuliere Du Fleuve Saint Louis (see previous lot). Karpinski XL; Kershaw 298 (Plate 195).