Details
WRIGHT, EDWARD. Certain Errors in Navigation. Detected and Corrected... With many Additions that were not in the former Editions. London: Printed by Joseph Moxon, 1657. Small 4to, modern tan calf gilt, some upper portions darkened throughout from old damp, some old stains also to gutter and lower margins at end, upper border of title cropped, small hole catching two words on Pp2, two ink blots on world map which is also worn with small tear at center of two central folds. Third edition, enlarged by Joseph Moxon, engraved title within a panel border comprising a world map on Mercator's projection at foot (re-engraved after the map on the second edition title) and navigational instruments above, 3 inserted woodcut diagrams (one folding), 6 engravings in text of which 2 full-page, numerous woodcut diagrams in text, TWO ENGRAVED FOLDING MAPS (AZORES AND THE WRIGHT-MOXON WORLD MAP). Sabin 105574; Adams and Waters, English Maritime Books 3797; Wing W-3689.
Engraved maps:
[Title-page: World]. Engraved copy of the title-page in the 1610 edition showing the same map, still on Mercator's projection, with some changes (e.g. California now shown as an island). Cf. Shirley, p. XXXVIII, illus.
A Particular Platt for Sailing to the Iles of Azores, 268 x 385mm. (10 5/8 x 15 3/16 in.), with margins, a few manuscript compass markings. The chart shows the route follwed by Cumberland's 1589 expedition.
A Plat of all the World. Projected according to the truest Rules. Being far more exact then either the Plain-Card or the Maps of the World discribed in two Rounds. First set forth by Mr. Edw. Wright and now newly corrected and inlarged with many New Discoveries by Jos. Moxon. And Sold at his Shop in Cornhill at the sign of Atlas. 1655. Engraved on two joined sheets, together 533 x 775mm. (21 15/16 x 30¾in.)
First published in 1599, Wright's work "contained a brilliant summary of all the chief contemporary practices of navigation together with a critical examination of their faults, and either the actual means for eliminating them or else sound guidance on the measures necessary to do away with them." (Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times, New Haven 1958, p. 219-20, and cf. pp. 219-229). The rare world map is a direct descendant of the celebrated Edward Wright-Emeric Molyneux map of the world, London 1599, one of the first to be presented using Mercator's projection, which is very occasionally found in vol. II of the second edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations. For the 1610 second edition of Wright's Certaine Errors, William Kip engraved another world map on Mercator's projection, an updated version of the Wright-Molyneux map. The Kip map is exceptionally rare and, possibly due to its larger size, was seldom bound up with the book (only one copy survives this way). No copies survive of a later issue of c. 1642-1646 by Peter Stent, which is only known from the erasure of a prior imprint on the present Wright-Moxon world map. For this amended version of 1655, "either Stent or Moxon carried out extensive amendments to the 1610 plates. The large royal coat-of-arms in the top left-hand corner has been erased, a new cartouche placed in the lower left-hand corner, and all the coastlines rehatched. Among the geographical changes are a new Hudson's Bay, the addition of Australia (noted as 'Discovered 1644') and the incorrect redrawing of California as an island."--Shirley, 396, plate 296 (see also 221, plate 177 and 272, plate 214 for Wright-Molyneux and Wright-Kip maps respectively).
Provenance:: Pierre S. duPont III (sale Christie's New York, 8 October, 1991, lot 254).
Engraved maps:
[Title-page: World]. Engraved copy of the title-page in the 1610 edition showing the same map, still on Mercator's projection, with some changes (e.g. California now shown as an island). Cf. Shirley, p. XXXVIII, illus.
A Particular Platt for Sailing to the Iles of Azores, 268 x 385mm. (10 5/8 x 15 3/16 in.), with margins, a few manuscript compass markings. The chart shows the route follwed by Cumberland's 1589 expedition.
A Plat of all the World. Projected according to the truest Rules. Being far more exact then either the Plain-Card or the Maps of the World discribed in two Rounds. First set forth by Mr. Edw. Wright and now newly corrected and inlarged with many New Discoveries by Jos. Moxon. And Sold at his Shop in Cornhill at the sign of Atlas. 1655. Engraved on two joined sheets, together 533 x 775mm. (21 15/16 x 30¾in.)
First published in 1599, Wright's work "contained a brilliant summary of all the chief contemporary practices of navigation together with a critical examination of their faults, and either the actual means for eliminating them or else sound guidance on the measures necessary to do away with them." (Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times, New Haven 1958, p. 219-20, and cf. pp. 219-229). The rare world map is a direct descendant of the celebrated Edward Wright-Emeric Molyneux map of the world, London 1599, one of the first to be presented using Mercator's projection, which is very occasionally found in vol. II of the second edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations. For the 1610 second edition of Wright's Certaine Errors, William Kip engraved another world map on Mercator's projection, an updated version of the Wright-Molyneux map. The Kip map is exceptionally rare and, possibly due to its larger size, was seldom bound up with the book (only one copy survives this way). No copies survive of a later issue of c. 1642-1646 by Peter Stent, which is only known from the erasure of a prior imprint on the present Wright-Moxon world map. For this amended version of 1655, "either Stent or Moxon carried out extensive amendments to the 1610 plates. The large royal coat-of-arms in the top left-hand corner has been erased, a new cartouche placed in the lower left-hand corner, and all the coastlines rehatched. Among the geographical changes are a new Hudson's Bay, the addition of Australia (noted as 'Discovered 1644') and the incorrect redrawing of California as an island."--Shirley, 396, plate 296 (see also 221, plate 177 and 272, plate 214 for Wright-Molyneux and Wright-Kip maps respectively).
Provenance:: Pierre S. duPont III (sale Christie's New York, 8 October, 1991, lot 254).