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The Map that Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of Science.

The Map that Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of Science.

The Map that Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of
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The Map that Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of Science. Hardback - 2001

by Winchester, Simon

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Description

London: Viking / Penguin Books, 2001. 1st ed.. Hardback small octavo, dustjacket, very good condition (in very good dustjacket), figures, colour maps endpapers, minor edgewear. 338 pp. Simon Winchester relates the story of how in 1815 an extraordinary hand-painted map was published in London: William Smith's majestic geological map of Britain. Some eight feet tall and six feet wide, brightly coloured - in sea-blue, green, bright yellow, orange, umber - it presented England and Wales in a beguiling and unfamiliar mixture of lines and patches and stippled shapes. It was the product of one man's obsession with rocks - a passion that sustained him whilst the rest of his life slid into ruin. (This copy: First edition, 11th printing.).
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Summary

Following the hugely successful hardback, this extraordinary tale of the father of modern geology looks set to be the non fiction paperback for 2002. Hidden behind velvet curtains above a stairway in a house in London's Piccadilly is an enormous and beautiful hand-coloured map - the first geological map of anywhere in the world. Its maker was a farmer's son named William Smith. Born in 1769 his life was beset by troubles: he was imprisoned for debt, turned out of his home, his work was plagiarised, his wife went insane and the scientific establishment shunned him. It was not until 1829, when a Yorkshire aristocrat recognised his genius, that he was returned to London in triumph: The Map That Changed the World is his story.

Reader reviews for The Map that Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of Science.

First line

Above one of the many grand mar staircases within the east wing of Burlington House, the great Palladian mansion on the north side of London' Piccadilly, hangs a pair of huge sky blue velvet curtains, twisted and tasseled silk ropes beside them.
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