The peninsular War Atlas

Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010. Hardcover. Near fine condition. Oblong Quarto. 384pp. Original brown half-cloth over color-illustrated boards with gilt lettering on cover and spine, housed in matching brown cloth slipcase with gilt lettering, gilt pull-string. Brown endpapers. Gilt ribbon marker.

"The Peninsular War was a defining moment in British military history; among the many improvements the the campaign brought was the transformation of British military mapmaking and the flowering of a cartographical department within the newly formed Royal Staff Corps... Under the Duke of Wellington's instructions his Quartermaster General, Colonel George Murray, issued orders for these new cartographic officers to embark on a programme of sketching large parts of the Peninsula. At the end of the war, Murray proposed to the Duke of Wellington a programme of retrospective mapping of the battlefields to illustrate the operations of the British forces... Colonel Lipscombe's work has, at last, concluded (and indeed enhanced) what Colonel Murray set out to achieve nearly tow hundred years ago. This atlas is comprehensive; it covers not just the battles and conflicts of the British and Anglo-Portuguese armies but also of all the major engagements that the Spanish and Portuguese armies fought against the French." (Wellington foreword). Profusely illustrated with fifty-four color maps showing the movements of military forces in during the Peninsular War. Contains various appendices, glossary and bibliography at rear. Minor wear, light rubbing.