Posted November 17, 2006.

Boston Public Library Still Missing Some Rare Maps

Although it has recovered 34 antique maps that were stolen by convicted map thief E. Forbes Smiley III, the Boston Public Library reports that some of its cartographic treasures are still missing. The 36 maps the library is still looking for were all used by Smiley in recent years, BPL Curator of Maps Ronald Grim said in the November 15 Boston Globe. The British Library, as well as Harvard and other institutions affected by Smiley’s thefts, suspect that he is responsible for more missing maps than he’s admitted to.

On November 15, BPL officials released to antiquarian dealers a list of maps that it suspects were stolen, including Samuel de Champlain’s large map of New France published in 1613 and several charts of New England and the Chesapeake from William Norman’s American Pilot (1798).

“We’ll shine the bright light,” BPL President Bernard Margolis told the Globe, “and see if some of these things out there can find their way home.”

The New York Map Society has compiled a master list, arranged by cartographer, of all maps currently missing from BPL, the New York Public Library, the British Library, and Harvard and Yale Universities.

Posted November 17, 2006.