This is great history, art history and insightful geography, but at its core “The Map Thief” is a crime report. Michael Blanding tells the story of Smiley, a widely known and respected collector of rare antiquarian maps, which he bought and sold to other dealers and wealthy clients for $30,000, $100,000 or more: centuries-old maps drawn by early explorers of America or that advanced the claims of one colonizing power over another. Maybe you were a map collector, and you can understand the hold that maps had on E. And maybe you wrote to tourism offices in all the states, and then to foreign embassies, begging for maps, and the mailman brought Delaware and Peru to your door, and Switzerland laid out on a gigantic piece of art that showed cities and rivers and mountain ranges in beautiful pastels. Williams Library, visit the library’s website at or follow on Twitter.Maybe when you were a teenager discovering the wide, fascinating world in books, you delighted especially in the maps they contained: maps of buried treasure and magical places, maps of conquest and exploration. For more information on upcoming events hosted by the J.D. “This is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn more about the importance of primary documents to scholars and the role of libraries in our current culture,” said Jennifer Ford, UM Libraries’ head of archives and special collections.įor more information about the lecture, contact Ford at or 66. “The Map Thief” was named a New York Times best-seller, an NPR Book of the Year, a New England Society Book Award winner and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize and the Massachusetts Book Awards.
“I look forward to strolling the grounds at Rowan Oak, and I hear that there is a nice Faulkner exhibit in the library’s (Department of ) Special Collections that I am eager to check out,” Blanding said. Blanding will explore the history of the maps Smiley stole, including those of the Deep South, and the importance of library security. Forbes Smiley III, who betrayed his friends and family by stealing more than $3 million worth of maps from various rare-book libraries around the country. The book tells the true story of a desperation-driven antiquarian map dealer, E. Williams Library and the Mississippi Geographic Alliance. The free lecture and book signing is sponsored by the UM Lecture Series, the Department of English, the J.D. – The life of a map bandit will be the topic of a free lecture Monday (March 21) at the University of Mississippi when New York Times best-selling author Michael Blanding comes to campus.īlanding will discuss his latest book, “The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps” (Gotham Books, 2014), at 6 p.m.
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