About the Book
The story of an infamous crime, a revered map dealer with an unsavory secret, and the ruthless subculture that consumed him
Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers--both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects.
Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief --until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. "The Map Thief" delves into the untold history of this fascinating high-stakes criminal and the inside story of the industry that consumed him.
Acclaimed reporter Michael Blanding has interviewed all the key players in this stranger-than-fiction story, and shares the fascinating histories of maps that charted the New World, and how they went from being practical instruments to quirky heirlooms to highly coveted objects. Though pieces of the map theft story have been written before, Blanding is the first reporter to explore the story in full--and had the rare privilege of having access to Smiley himself after he'd gone silent in the wake of his crimes. Moreover, although Smiley swears he has admitted to all of the maps he stole, libraries claim he stole hundreds more--and offer intriguing clues to prove it. Now, through a series of exclusive interviews with Smiley and other key individuals, Blanding teases out an astonishing tale of destruction and redemption.
"The Map Thief" interweaves Smiley's escapades with the stories of the explorers and mapmakers he knew better than anyone. Tracking a series of thefts as brazen as the art heists in "Provenance" and a subculture as obsessive as the oenophiles in "The Billionaire's Vinegar," Blanding has pieced together an unforgettable story of high-stakes crime.
About the Author :
Michael Blanding is an author and journalist with more than fifteen years of experience writing long-form narrative and investigative journalism and has written for "The Nation, The New Republic, Consumers Digest, " and "The Boston Globe Magazine." He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Review :
"In this cartographic caper, Michael Blanding slips into the antique map trade and takes a magnifying glass to the mind and motivations of a curious character named E. Forbes Smiley III, a New England polymath with a special talent for taking razors to rare books. The setting and the character belong in a novel, and this engrossing book reads like fiction."
--Nina Burleigh, author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italian Trials of Amanda Knox"
""The Map Thief" isn't just a perceptive, meticulously researched portrait of an exceedingly unlikely felon. It's also a tribute to the beautiful old maps that inspired his cartographic crimes--and shaped our modern world."
--Ken Jennings, author of "Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks"
"Old maps tug powerfully at the imagination, and not always in healthy ways. Nothing makes that clearer than the strange, unsettling case of Forbes Smiley, whose story Michael Blanding has pieced together in captivating detail. This is an unforgettable and cautionary tale, told by an expert investigative reporter who writes with the narrative flair of a novelist. A great read!"
--Toby Lester, author of "The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America"
"Disgraced map dealer Forbes Smiley once said that he hoped that the stories about his thefts 'would go away.' That might be so. But thankfully Michael Blanding decided otherwise, and he tells a powerful story about the nature of crime, greed and art. Smart, suspenseful, and engaging, this book is a fascinating read."
--Ulrich Boser, bestselling author of "The Gardner Heist"
"This is a terrific book. The portrait of Forbes Smiley here is one we rarely get of cultural heritage thieves--complete and even-handed, without being either credulous or vindictive. "The Map Thief," aside from being wonderfully readable, is a valuable a
Advance Praise for" The Map Thief"
"In this cartographic caper, Michael Blanding slips into the antique map trade and takes a magnifying glass to the mind and motivations of a curious character named E. Forbes Smiley III, a New England polymath with a special talent for taking razors to rare books. The setting and the character belong in a novel, and this engrossing book reads like fiction."
--Nina Burleigh, author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italian Trials of Amanda Knox"
""The Map Thief" isn't just a perceptive, meticulously researched portrait of an exceedingly unlikely felon. It's also a tribute to the beautiful old maps that inspired his cartographic crimes--and shaped our modern world."
--Ken Jennings, author of "Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks"
"Old maps tug powerfully at the imagination, and not always in healthy ways. Nothing makes that clearer than the strange, unsettling case of Forbes Smiley, whose story Michael Blanding has pieced together in captivating detail. This is an unforgettable and cautionary tale, told by an expert investigative reporter who writes with the narrative flair of a novelist. A great read!"
--Toby Lester, author of "The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America"
"Disgraced map dealer Forbes Smiley once said that he hoped that the stories about his thefts "would go away." That might be so. But thankfully Michael Blanding decided otherwise, and he tells a powerful story about the nature of crime, greed and art. Smart, suspenseful, and engaging, this book is a fascinating read." - Ulrich Boser, bestselling author of "The Gardner Heist"
"This is a terrific book. The portrait of Forbes Smiley here is one we rarely get of cultural heritage thieves - complete and even-handed, without being either credulous or vindictive. "The Map Thief," aside from be
Q&A with Michael Blanding, author of "The Map Thief"
How many maps did Forbes Smiley steal?
Smiley admitted to stealing 97 maps from six libraries--Harvard, Yale, New York Public Library, Boston Public Library, the British Library, and the Newberry Library in Chicago--worth over $3 million in all. However, the libraries accuse him of taking many more. In all, they are missing around 250 maps, and have evidence that he stole at least a dozen of them. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle--but we may never know for sure exactly how many he stole.
How did he steal them?
In many cases, the maps were contained in rare books, and Smiley was able to go into a library and just rip them out or cut them out with a razor blade when no one was looking. In other cases, he would request a folder full of maps and just take one. Then, he folded them and put them in the pocket of his blazer and just walked right out. Library catalogs often don't specify which exact maps should appear in which books or folders. So Smiley could rip out a map worth $100,000, and walk out without anyone knowing it was missing. Many of the map library curators knew him as a respected rare-map dealer and trusted him almost like a colleague; he abused that trust to walk out with rare maps right under their noses.
How could he ever sell these rare maps? Wouldn't someone know they were stolen?
Maps aren't like works of art, which exist in only one copy and are strictly catalogued by museums. A rare map might exist in a dozen or more copies, both in libraries and private hands, with no way of knowing if another copy isn't hidden in someone's attic somewhere. Smiley sold mostly to other dealers he'd worked with for years, and they apparently believed them when he told them that he was quietly selling off copies of old maps from the collection of old clients. When these dealers then sold them to collectors, they could openly display them with no idea that stolen pro
"Important and readable."
"--The Atlantic"
"Thoroughly detailed, stimulating, and challenging."
"--""BookPage "
