1909 Mehmet Eşref Map of North America w/ Telegraph Cables

This is a 1909 Turkish map of North America and Europe, marking the positions of major telegraph cables, both transatlantic and transcontinental. It was produced by the educator and publisher Mehmet Eşref, and may well be the only such printed map available to the collector. All titles and descriptive text is in Ottoman Turkish. National borders are not shown, but major features such as the Great Lakes and the Mississippi do appear. The telegraph routes are marked in red. Chromolithograph.

Publication History and Census

Turkish atlas maps are rare on the market. This one was published in Eşref’s Umum-i vilayat-ı Şahaneyi havi küçük atlas/( اطالس كوچك حاوى يى شهان ى والياة عموم), of which OCLC lists only a single copy at the Bogazici University Library in Istanbul.