Separately issued Victorian folding map of the continent of Africa showing the latest discoveries.

Geographically, the outline of the map is based on the Faden/De La Rochette map which was originally issued in 1782 and used throughout Faden's career into the early 19th century. The plate then must have passed on to James Wyld the Elder and James Wyld, in turn used the same outline. Despite the similarity of the outline, a comparison between the two versions of the map map suggests that Wyld did conduct some revision of the earlier plate; curiously, this was mainly elimination of erroneous information throughout the interior of the continent. Despite this later editing, this map still bears multiple text panels of information which is generally of a dubious scientific nature; however, it does serve to suggest that his map contains far more information than that of his rivals, such as John Arrowsmith, whose map, although relatively speaking is far more accurate for the time, certainly looks much sparser at first glance.

Due to Wyld's commercial acumen, this map was widely distributed and became one of the archetypal cartographic images of Africa in the 19th century. Original hand colour. Folded. [AFR6009]