When Mark Twain was in his mid thirties he published a map on the front page of the Buffalo Express – a newspaper that he was part owner and editor of. He had to carve this map into a wooden printer’s block with a knife, giving it a certain coarseness that added to the mood he was trying to strike with it.
The map, titled “Fortifications of Paris” is a parody of other maps that were published around that time concerning the Franco-Prussian War. The map was a big hit – being reprinted many times even though it turned out to be printed backward. Twain would have had to carve it backward in order to have it print correctly.*
The Fortifications of Paris map is, then, a satirical war map with labels such as Erie Canal, Omaha, and Jersey City where the Erie Canal is apparently a big Parisian river and Jersey City is lying near the Seine. It’s also nice to note the farm house in the southern portion. Apparently some people considered the amount of information being published about the war to be over-the-top, while this seems absurd given today’s standards of information needs. It was published on September 17, 1870.
*Note: Am glad not to have to make maps backwards.
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