[Van Loon’s Map of the World]

The lovely cartographic dust jacket from Van Loon’s Geography.

“Help us to understand our earthly home and see ourselves as fellow-passengers on the same planet, all of us equally responsible for the happiness of and well-being of the world in which we happen to live.” – text, verso.

This beautifully sketched world map was issued as the dust jacket to Van Loon’s Geography, published by Simon & Schuster in 1932. Hendrik Willem van Loon was an award winning children’s author from the Netherlands who was active throughout Europe in the first half of the 1900’s. Described in a brief biography on the verso, “he belongs to no party and is associated with no political or economic group, being a confirmed Individualist and believing that Men are infinitely more important than Measures.”

The image of an interwar world, still recovering from WWII, presents topograhy and hydrography pictorially, giving the audience an impression of the general layout rather than precise geographical information. Numerous annotations throughout the image labels countries, islands and major cities while further illustrations across the bottom of the sheet depict the vast gulf between the New and Old Worlds. With the exception of this scene and a few sailing ships, humanity is notable absent from the map. In the border can be found more practical data, including a list of countries, their Capital, government type and estimated population.