Cartographic Wonders
The Octopus
Russia drawn as an octopus, tentacles across Europe.
- Map
- Serio-Comic War Map for the Year 1877
- Mapmaker
- Fred W. Rose
- Date
- 1877
- Held by
- Cornell University, PJ Mode Collection
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
The map that invented a visual language still in use. Rose drew Russia as an octopus with a tentacle around every neighbour on the eve of the Russo-Turkish war, and gave every other nation a body and a mood. It is propaganda, and it is honest about being propaganda — the key names its own opinions down the left-hand edge. Every octopus map since is quoting this one.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain map held by Cornell University, PJ Mode Collection — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag or textured laid stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed and linen-backed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our maps cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the sea monsters, the tiny place-names, the burin lines — on stock made to outlive its owner.
