Lot 22
22
FIRST WORK ON NAVAL ARCHITECTURE TO BE PRINTED IN ENGLISH
BUSHNELL, Edmund. The Compleat Ship-Wright. Plainly and demonstratively teaching the proportions used by experienced ship-wrights ... To which is added certain propositions in geometry, the use of a diagonall scale, to draw a draught, with the making, graduating, or marking of a bend of moulds ... Also a way of rowing ships, London: by W. Leybourn for George Hurlock, 1664, 4°, FIRST EDITION, [8] + 68pp., folding woodcut plate, woodcut diagrams (tears to inner margin of title, old dampstains to margins). [Scott 115: "an important book, being the first English work on naval architecture"; Wing B6252; Adams & Waters 302] [Bound with:] the fourth edition of the same work, London: by R. W. for William Fisher, 1678, 4°, [4] + 56pp. numbered to 43, woodcut diagrams (lacking the folding plate, repair to inner margin of title, further repairs to text) [Scott 137; Wing B6254; Adams & Waters 305] [and:] Thomas MILLER. The Compleat Modellist shewing the true and exact way of raising the model of any ship or vessel ... Also the manner how to find the length of every rope exactly. And tables which give the true bigness of every rope in each vessel. Together with the weights of their anchors and cables, London: by W. Leybourn for George Hurlock, 1664, 4°, second edition, [4] + 19 + [1]p., 2 folding woodcut plates (one plate with small, old repair, final leaves dampstained) [Scott 116; Wing M2063aA; Adams & Waters 2512], together 2 works in one volume, the first in 2 editions, early 20th-century boards backed in green morocco, Scott Library label.

Details
BUSHNELL, Edmund. The Compleat Ship-Wright. Plainly and demonstratively teaching the proportions used by experienced ship-wrights ... To which is added certain propositions in geometry, the use of a diagonall scale, to draw a draught, with the making, graduating, or marking of a bend of moulds ... Also a way of rowing ships, London: by W. Leybourn for George Hurlock, 1664, 4°, FIRST EDITION, [8] + 68pp., folding woodcut plate, woodcut diagrams (tears to inner margin of title, old dampstains to margins). [Scott 115: "an important book, being the first English work on naval architecture"; Wing B6252; Adams & Waters 302] [Bound with:] the fourth edition of the same work, London: by R. W. for William Fisher, 1678, 4°, [4] + 56pp. numbered to 43, woodcut diagrams (lacking the folding plate, repair to inner margin of title, further repairs to text) [Scott 137; Wing B6254; Adams & Waters 305] [and:] Thomas MILLER. The Compleat Modellist shewing the true and exact way of raising the model of any ship or vessel ... Also the manner how to find the length of every rope exactly. And tables which give the true bigness of every rope in each vessel. Together with the weights of their anchors and cables, London: by W. Leybourn for George Hurlock, 1664, 4°, second edition, [4] + 19 + [1]p., 2 folding woodcut plates (one plate with small, old repair, final leaves dampstained) [Scott 116; Wing M2063aA; Adams & Waters 2512], together 2 works in one volume, the first in 2 editions, early 20th-century boards backed in green morocco, Scott Library label.

Lot Essay

The 1st edition of Miller's The Compleat Modellist, which is on the art of rigging, was published in 1660, and there were 7 issues up to 1716. Bushnell's similarly titled Compleat Ship-wright describes the design of a ship of 60 ft. on the keel (see illustration overleaf). This went into 8 editions between 1664 and 1716. Yet is is fair to describe either work as extremely scarce in any edition. Thomas Adams and David Waters locate copies of the 1st edition of Bushnell only at Magdalene College, Cambridge, the National Maritime Museum Greenwich, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Only one copy of the 1st edition of Miller is recorded. This is at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, while copies of the 2nd edition are located only at Magdalene College and the National Maritime Museum. Maggs's Bibliotheca Nautica included a 4th edition of Bushnell (1938) and a 5th edition of Miller (1933), both priced at £21.

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