To Know the Distance: Wayfinding and Roadmaps of Early Modern England and France

Abstract

In 1675, John Ogilby produced his road atlas with strip maps which not only arrived with fanfare, but spawned several more publications that aimed to be user-friendly. As with many maps and atlases from the London printing trade, the objectives were to serve consumers, acquire a piece of the market, and have an outlet for a new edition. Across the Channel, however, the road network of France, as with other public works, was not only state-directed but a tool of state power. Not until nearly one hundred years later did Claude-Sidoine Michel and Louis-Charles Desnos produce L'Indicateur Fidèle, which provided strip maps for merchants, navigators, and travelers. This publication emerged out of the French national mapping project directed by the Cassini family. In the interim, while French map makers produced maps with an appeal to serving the state, they, like their London contemporaries, also hoped to maintain a thriving business and attract an audience, often through the traditional French social institution of patronage. The purpose of this comparative study of (post) road maps and atlases of England and France is to investigate the role of the government and the publishing trade in the production of these works.

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