Maps for reading / Britain & literature
France & Britain · early modern
Two panels place seventeenth-century British writers within a wider European political setting. Read the map beside the history of Milton’s and Bunyan’s lifetimes.
- Period shown
- French frontier expansion 1601–1766; British Isles 1603–1688
- Published
- 1911 · Atlas pages 126–127
- Suggested use
- Grades 7–12; teacher-selected comparisons for younger learners.
All grade-picker settings retain access to this map. Suggested grades describe support needs, not a restriction.
Historical judgment
Read this map carefully
The panels span different intervals and summarize change, rather than showing one moment. This is context for composition and reception, not the heavenly world of Paradise Lost or the allegorical path in The Pilgrim’s Progress.
No separate drawing date is established here; 1911 is the verified atlas publication date, not the period depicted.
At the table or in class
A question to begin
Find London, Scotland, and the English Channel. Explain why a map of a writer’s historical world differs from a map of an allegory or biblical epic.
First read the map title, legend, scale, and inset headings. Then name what the map can show—and what it cannot.
Source & public-domain record
- Atlas & maker
- William R. Shepherd (atlas compiler); Velhagen & Klasing (printed credit; no individual draughtsman identified). Historical Atlas. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911. Pages 126–127. A separate drawing date is not established by this record.
- Source institution
- University of Texas Libraries, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Exact original scan · Edition catalog · Original title page · Hosted title-page evidence.
- Rights
- Public domain in the United States (PD-US-expired). This exact sheet is listed in the archive’s 1911 edition and was published in the United States in 1911, as independently confirmed by the scanned New York title page. Its underlying publication is before 1931 and outside US copyright in 2026. The archive states that its public-domain map scans may be downloaded and reused without permission; this original atlas item is not flagged as a separately copyrighted modern map. Only faithful resizing/format conversion has been applied to previews; the downloadable scan is unchanged. Archive reuse statement · 2026 US copyright-term reference. US public-domain assessment, not a worldwide legal guarantee. Check local law when reusing outside the United States.
- Credit
- From William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Scan courtesy of University of Texas Libraries.
- Download integrity
- Unchanged source JPG · 1914 × 1541 pixels · 925,480 bytes.
SHA-256:87054823f24234a008f70ad863cb12c065339738819a933232381b48a795b970
Reviewed 2026-11-06. Download complete provenance manifest.