Product Description

In December 1995 Gilbert Bland was chased from a rare book room of Johns Hopkins University, clutching a 232-year-old map. He turned out to be one of the greatest map thieves in history. Miles Harvey traced Bland's journey from middle-class anonymity to dark criminality, to understand what drove Bland to steal some of the rarest cartographic treasures in the world. Since men have drawn maps, others have stolen them. Columbus discovered America with the help of charts purloined from the Portuguese; Francis Drake shattered Spain's hold of the Americas and made smooth passage to the East Indies with captured Spanish maps. Miles Harvey returns to the libraries whose collections were so depleted by Gilbert Bland's thieving, to try to fill the gaps in this enigmatic man's life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57204 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In 1995, a watchful patron alerted a librarian at Johns Hopkins University that another patron, a middle-aged and well-dressed man, was behaving suspiciously. The librarian called the police, who discovered that the man, a Floridian named Gilbert Bland, had cut four maps from a set of rare books. On investigation, the police were able to attribute dozens of similar thefts to Bland, thefts that had taken place at a score of the country's best-regarded--and, presumably, best-protected--scholarly institutions.

Like countless other readers, Miles Harvey, a writer for Outside magazine, encountered the news of Bland's arrest as a news brief in the back pages of the morning newspaper. The story stayed with Harvey, who wondered why otherwise law-abiding people behave so badly around antiquities. In The Island of Lost Maps, a wonderfully rich excursion into the demimonde of what might be called cartographomania, Harvey follows Bland's tracks from library to library, reconstructing the crimes of the man he deems the Al Capone of map theft, following the contours of Bland's complex, sinister character. Along the way, Harvey examines the history of cartography generally, as well as the ravenous market for old maps, once the quiet province of a few knowing collectors but now, invaded by speculators, just another corner of the overpriced status-symbol commodity market--and one that richly rewarded Bland's nefarious work.

Harvey's winding narrative, full of learned detours, adds up to a superbly rendered tale of true crime (and, many readers might object, of insufficient punishment), one that will appeal to book lovers and mystery buffs in equal measure. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author
Miles Harvey writes for a variety of American journals and newspapers. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and was a finalist in the 1997 National Magazine Award in the Special Interest Category for an article on which this book is based.

Customer Reviews

Dangerously interesting
This book, one of the most fascinating I've read in a long time, is dangerously interesting. Dangerous because it'll leave you wanting to know more, about maps, their history, and collecting them - an expensive pursuit!

The book is not a geography book, nor is it a history book. It's about one man's search to find out about the life of Gilbert Bland, a compulsive and prolific map thief who ransacked several American libraries in the 1990s. The book tries to find out Bland's motives, assessing his impact on the quiet trade he tried to infiltrate.

Along the way, there are chunks of psychiatry, which give a fascinating insight into the mind of this criminal, and also gripping stories about the history of cartography and world exploration.

The book is packed with larger-than-life figures: map dealers, explorers, collectors, even librarians, all have a role to play in this endlessly entertaining read. The style is light and amusing, but the book has clearly been written by somebody who knows his stuff. You will leave it with a perfect first dip into the world of maps, and are left with a thirst to find out more about the history and current state of the map trade.

An unbeatable, unputdownable read, which is more like a thriller than a history book; it has inspired this reader, at least, to find out more about map collecting, and I think it could have the same effect on you.

An excellent book
This book is an interesting insight into the world of map collecting. I bought it on a whim, and read it in a single day. I knew nothing about map collecting, but being a collector of other things, I understand the mania that can grip you. It was shocking to learn how easy it was for Gilbert Bland to steal rare maps from University libraries across America. It was also surprising to learn how legitimate map dealers "break" old atlases and rare volumes to sell the maps individually. The price some of these maps fetch was certainly eye-opening. The book also delves into the history of maps and map theft, and how maps conveyed real power during the European age of discovery. Maps can inspire us because they show us what is beyond our own horizon. This book is not just about maps; it is about human imagination.

Interesting, but not riveting
Whilst undoubtedly interesting, I would not describe this book as "riveting" or "inspiring" - terms which have been used in other reviews here.

The book describes the attempts of the author, Miles Harvey, to understand the motives that drove Gilbert Bland to steal rare and valuable maps from a number of library collections throughout the United States and Canada.

In pursuing this quest, Harvey clearly does a great deal of research, and the book delves into a whole variety of subjects including the history of map-making, the exploits, adventures and misadventures of various explorers, criminal psychology, mythology and the psychology of collecting. However, as Mr Harvey at no point actually secures an interview with Bland, at the end of the day he can only speculate on what it was that drove Bland to commit these crimes, based on interviews with psychologists, librarians, FBI agents, other collectors, and those who knew him.

Thus, the book end up presenting a mixture of facts, opinions and thoughts on a whole variety of subjects. Nevertheless, one cannot help but wonder why the writer is so obsessed with Mr Bland.