h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi folks, now I doubt even H2G2 can help me with this one, but I've tried virtually everything else so here goes....

I'm looking for a book my father used to have. It was called
"The map that came to life" and was used to teach children how to read maps. As far as i know it was printed by the Oxford University Press in 1948.

My father learnt how to read a map from it and so did I, many years later. Unfortunately, during a house moving sometime in the 1980s the book disappeared and I'd love to find a copy of it.

Anyone got any brilliant ideas? Or even a copy of the book hanging around unwanted anywhere?


whisky

Have you tried Foyles bookshop in London?

If they don't know of it then no one will.

I think its well out of print now. Do Foyles do second hand/antiquarian books?

There are some very good second hand book sellers on the internet, but you have to scout around. There's also quite a large chain across the North of England, through Northumberland. I forget the name for the moment...

I assume you've tried the thing on amazon that looks for out of print books.

The biggest 2nd hand bookshop I know is http://www.barterbooks.co.uk

I'm sure you've done a search on the internet - all I could see was that the authors were Deverson and Lampitt, and that there was a 1954 edition as well...

Have you tried OUP themselves?

Good luck - will keep an eye out for it

Foyles used to sell secondhand books, but their online shop is only for titles currently in print.

In my local Yellow Pages there are several antiquarian book dealers, even one over 100 miles away in Hay on Wye, which is secondhand book heaven. One of those may be able to help you.

Sounds an excellent book, I would have thought there would at least modern text book similar to it.

It was an excellent book, basically it told the story of a couple of kids wandering across the english countryside from their home, in an idyllic little country village, to the local town where there's a fair going on. The whole book was illustrated with both beautiful paintings of the countryside and the equivalent section of the OS map, so you could read the story and directly compare the views in the book with the same section of map. A real work of art and great for teaching kids how to read a map.

Of course, it was written in the days when you'd let your kids run around the countryside all alone and they could quite safely go to the fair, alone, without risk. Isn't progress a wonderful thing .

That's the one! Thanks, Cloviscat.

It sounds a lovely book, Whisky.

I remember the days of roaming the countryside, with a jam sandwich and a Jubbly

To give you an idea Caerwynn, there's a picture of one of the pages here...
http://www.adh.brighton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/01/LIALampitt.html

I suggest you try Ebay Auction rooms - www.ebay.co.uk

If you become a member, you can get them to email you when your book comes up!

Bambi

Hi

Much like you I was searching for a book from my childhood. This is how I found it. I checked the details with the British Library Catalogue and then I fed it in to http://www.usedbooksearch.co.uk/ and I found it in the UK

As the daughter of a rare book dealer, when you said very old book I thought you meant medieval! 20th Century are easier to find. Good luck

I have bought quite a few books throuh abebooks. (They're one of the sites searched by the page Abi mentioned). If you go to their site, you can leave a 'want list' of books, and the next time one appears in any of their booksellers' catalogues, they send you an email giving the seller and price. I found this handy for one book which I thought was too expensive - I left the name on a 'want list' and a couple of months later a much cheaper copy turned up. Another was a particularly obscure title, and I think it was 6 or 8 months before one showed up. If you can't find it anywhere, that might be useful as a last resort.

Azara

I think it must be the style or I've seen other books by the same illustrator, but that book looks familiar, Whisky!

I noticed in doing a quick search that Lampitt had ilustrated a Ladybird book about maps which seems to be farily common second-hand. It might have had similar sorts of illustrations...

Azara

A fellow researcher sent me this when I was looking for the Malawi Cookbook (even more difficult, I think)
"If you haven't found it yet,

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm

then search by title:"
It worked for me. I now have a copy of a long out of print cookbook that includes recipes for flying ants. (I stupidly lent my original copy to someone over 25 years ago) Good luck

I must say, when I clicked on that link and saw a page from the book, lots of bells started to ring. I'm sure I had, or at least saw that book when I was a young Gosho.

Hope you find it

Any luck yet, Whisky?

No joy yet, but I've still to try the links that were posted this weekend. Thanks for the ideas folks, I'm sure a copy will turn up sooner or later... If not, I know the British Library have two copies, I can always wander in with a long coat on and try to walk out with one

I tried that at the Bodleian and nearly got shot

http://www.nwnet.co.uk/BFG/

This fellow is _excellent_, not withstanding the silly initials . He has tracked down out-of-prints for me on numerous occasions. Prompt, efficient and polite.

B