The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime Hardcover – September 5, 2000 by Miles Harvey
 
"Every once in a blue moon you read a book that leaves you absolutely breathless, reminding you of the bright, hidden worlds within our world. This is that book, a glimmering, supersonic journey into terra incognita, where Miles Harvey, acting as writer and sleuth, pursues America's greatest map thief. This is a riveting, hilarious book of twists and turns, unexpected confessions and deep human truths. You will not rest until the last page."
--Michael Paterniti, author of Driving Mr. Albert:
A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain

The Island of Lost Maps is the story of a curious crime spree: the theft of scores of valuable centuries-old maps from some of the most prominent research libraries in the United States and Canada. The perpetrator was the Al Capone of cartography, a man with the unlikely name of Gilbert Bland, Jr., an enigmatic antiques dealer from south Florida whose cross-country slash-and-dash operation went virtually undetected until he was caught in December 1995.
        This is also the spellbinding story of author Miles Harvey's quest to understand America's greatest map thief, a chameleon who changed careers and families without ever looking back. Gilbert Bland was a cipher, a blank slate--for Harvey, journalistic terra incognita. Filling in Bland's life was like filling in a map, and grew from an investigation into an intellectual adventure.
        Harvey listens to the fury of the librarians from whom Bland stole. He introduces us to America's foremost map mogul, a millionaire maverick who predicted the boom in map collecting. He retraces Bland's life, from his run-ins with the law to his troubled service in Vietnam. And finally, with the aid of an FBI agent, Harvey discovers the Island of Lost Maps. The deeper Miles Harvey investigates, the more we are drawn into this fascinating subculture of collectors, experts, and enthusiasts, all of them gripped by an obsession both surreal and sublime. Capturing that passion in perfect pitch, The Island of Lost Maps is an intriguing story of exploration, craftsmanship, villainy, and the lure of the unknown.
 
From Publishers Weekly
Harvey himself sometimes seems obsessed as he explores the obsession of those who collect maps. Still, this is a challenging and erudite exploration of the explosion in "map culture" and the damage wrought by one determined con man with cartographic passions. Harvey's primary narrative (which originated as an article for Outside magazine) concerns the exploits of Gilbert Bland, a man who on the surface, according to Harvey, did indeed seem bland but who stole approximately $500,000 in antique maps from poorly secured rare-book libraries. Bland was apprehended in 1995 at Baltimore's Peabody Library; he was ultimately charged in several jurisdictions after numerous universities discovered extensive losses, but he plea-bargained for a light sentence. Harvey painstakingly reconstructs the map thief's various identitiesAfor Bland, a "chameleon," had abandoned a number of spouses and children and had engaged in questionable business ventures. Thus is Harvey launched into a larger meditation on the lure of "terra incognita," both literal and metaphoric, whether of Bland's enigmatic life or of undiscovered continents. Harvey uses the Bland case to explore both cartographic history and the dangers of obsession. One collector he examines is controversial map megadealer Graham Arader, considered responsible for cartography's newfound commercialism. Harvey's pursuit of all possible tangents (he even visits a map factory) causes his narrative to become unwieldy at times. But he offers dry wit and a fine sense of the dark places in our contemporary landscape, and he successfully captures both the story of Bland's bizarre "map crime spree" and the underexamined history and politics of contemporary cartography. Agent, Sloan Harris. 50,ooo first printing; 8-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
 
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