BRITISH LIBRARY - Theft of 400-year-old maps
Three antiquarian maps were stolen recently from the British Library. They include a woodblock printed world map from George Best’s A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Martin Frobisher (1578), a map of New England and the Canadian Maritimes cut from Sir William Alexander’s An Encouragement to Colonies (1624), and a world map by Peter Apian from Ioannis Camertis Minoritani by Solinus, printed in Venice in 1520. The British Library now has a list of nearly 7,000 books and other publications that have disappeared since they moved into the new building in 1998. Among the missing items is the 1951 issue of the Beano to contain first cartoon of Dennis the Menace and rare copies of the Dandy and Eagle.
The full story is in The Times.
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1777918,00.html