This article is aimed at all those who are starting to collect, or are wondering how to set about it. However, it could apply equally to established map collectors looking for new directions. The advice is based on many years of collecting experience by Rodney Shirley. In this article he describes the build-up or anatomy of his recent collection of cartographic title-pages and frontispieces rather than maps but the same principles and lessons apply to both.

FIRST OF ALL, and an absolute essential, there needs to be some urge or stimulus to start off the enthusiasm of the collector. What this is is immaterial: it may be a chance purchase that sparks off a new area of interest, or it may be a visit to a particular country or exhibition, or a perception of something unusual about a particular mapmaker, mapmaking school or historical period, or even friendly jealousy seeing someone else's collection. This spark is the one completely random and uncertain factor that kick-starts a quest that may last for years. The second most important thing is that there needs to be - almost by definition - a rationale or theme upon which to hang the continuing basis for a collection.

In my case, I had been collecting general maps of the British Isles for several years, then world maps coincident with research into my book The Mapping of the World. With the increasing cost of world maps it was fortunate that in about 1980 my collecting antennae switched to title-pages and frontispieces that had come from atlases and similar books of discovery, geography, and topography.

Separate title-pages are collectors' items because, regrettably, many atlases have been broken up since the 1930s so that the maps could be sold individually. Their collection nowadays substantiates the continuing need to preserve and bring forward for public appreciation the outstanding works of art that so many title-pages and frontispieces represent.

I cannot pinpoint exactly when and why my interest was aroused. But in the 1970s I do recall buying the world map from Johann Zahn's Speculum, published in 1696, from Francis Edwards in London. Their map specialist, R.V. Tooley, with characteristic generosity, threw in the strange title-page of the work for £1, rather clumsily tearing it out of the disbound book which pained me at the time. I looked at it, could not understand it at all, and put it away for several years. It was the first frontispiece I possessed and kept as such. Another early one was Santini's splendid frontispiece to his Atlas Universel which was used recently for the front cover and frontispiece of Mary Pedley's book on the De Vaugondy family, Bel et Utile.[1]

While I was collecting world maps I came across a number of these which doubled as title-pages. Several were from the pages of De Bry's works offered to me by Mark Ambrus and John Faupel; also from others dealers the rare oval Hondius world map on a Cornelis Claesz title-page of 1595 and the Louis Renard frontispiece to his 1715 Atlas de la navigation, showing Atlas supporting the circular world on a north polar projection.

William Darton published his Union Atlas in 1820. The vignettes of the four continents encircle a title which is composed of at least eight different styles of type with all their embellishments. At the foot is a dramatic vignette showing William Penn at the point of negotiating his Treaty with the Indians. In the background, already built, are some solid European-type houses and, to the left, porters can be seen unloading supplies. (By courtesy of the author)

This title-page is from Le Clerc's French atlas of 1631. The figure on the right represents the previous King Henri IV (murdered 1610) as Hercules He is holding a club throttling a serpent personifying his enemies; in his left hand he holds an orb as a symbol of royalty. The left hand figure is that of the present King Louis XIII as Apollo holding a sceptre and lyre. Above, figures of Minerva and Fame flank a crowned sphere on which is inscribed a map of France. At the foot, between the arms of France and Navarre, is a bird's-eye view of Paris. The title-page is signed by Léonard Gautier. (By courtesy of the author)

In the early 1980s I was in Tom Schuster's old shop near Victoria, London, (where Ashley Baynton-Williams was working temporarily) and bought four or five title-pages by Jacob Robyn, John Speed, Jan Jansson and Johann Homann. These, all in contemporary colouring, seemed to me then (and indeed now) to be superb examples of decorative engraving; often executed to a higher degree of skill than the maps themselves in the atlases from which the title-pages had come. Moreover, they were sometimes signed by the engravers themselves implying that the frontispiece had been specially commissioned from them. Over the next three years I picked up the occasional title-page, sometimes from dealers and sometimes by browsing around the stalls at the Bonington Map Fair and other fairs. My advice to all collectors is to buy from as many outlets as possible. Only in this way can you spread your net widely enough, be aware of the variety available, and be able to keep track of bargain, average, or excessive prices in relation to scarcity, condition, and colouring. It is sometimes at non-map fairs that the luckiest finds occur. For instance, at one of the recent Russell Hotel book fairs in London I found two finely coloured title-pages in excellent condition from Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum. The dealer wanted £5 each for them and I hadn't the heart to bargain downwards.