"The young lady who is responsible for these sketches is now in her fifteenth year, and her first idea of map drawing is traceable to her meeting with a small figure of Punch riding on a Dolphin, and contrived to represent England. The thought occurred to her when seeking to amuse a brother confined to his bed by illness. It is believed that these illustrations of Geography may be rendered educational, and prove of service to young scholars, who commonly think Globes and Maps but wearisome aids to knowledge, by enabling them to retain the outline of the various countries so humorously caricatured in the work, by associating them in their mind's eye with odd fancy figures. The bluffs and headlands of Scotland would be identified with the struggling piper"
Extract from "Geographical Fun: Being Humourous Outlines of Various Countries". The pictorial atlas, created by William Harvey (1796-1866) was first published in London by the firm of Hodder and Stoughton in 1869.
The atlas consists of twelve maps of European countries, each with a unique national stereotype created by the author based on the outline and shape of the country. Each image is accompanied by a short verse describing the author’s creation.
