In choosing the starting date of 1847 for this wide-ranging work, the authors cover the full history of the one-inch engraved map in Scotland and Ireland, while in England and Wales, where publication of the Old Series had been in progress since 1805, Old Series sheets 91 to 110 are included. These latter sheets, north of the 'Preston to Hull line', differ from those publishedearlier, being demonstrably on Cassini's Projection on the origin of Delamere and based on survey at six-inch or larger scales. Their quarter sheets form the basis of the system of regular sheet lines that would be extended south to cover all of England and Wales as the Old Series was superseded by what became known as the New Series. The book charts the long history of the subsequent editions of the engraved map, culminating in the last sheets in Ireland going out of print in 1999.