Details
ENGLISH PILOT. The English Pilot. The Fourth Book. Describing the Sea-Coasts, Capes, Head-Lands, Rivers, Bays, Roads...and Dangers from the River Amazons to New-found-Land; with all the West-India Navigation, and the Islands therein. London: for William Fisher and John Thornton 1689. Folio, modern calf, lacking A1 blank and at least 7 charts, 5 1/2 inch clean tear to a fold of the large folding chart, one or two insignificant marginal tears or paper defects to text leaves, foxing to the charts on heavier paper, some light marginal foxing, occasional show-through.
FIRST EDITION OF "THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT COLLECTION OF CHARTS EXCLUSIVELY OF THE AMERICAN COASTS TO BE PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND" (Cumming, p. 39), 15 engraved charts: one large double-sheet folding chart, 13 mapsheets (all but one on thick unwatermarked paper), and 1 half-sheet, numerous small woodcut detail charts and coastal profiles in the text, with an additional inserted map, tipped in to the first leaf of the sixth chart,"Part of North America, comprehending the Course of the Ohio, New England, New York, [etc.]...From the Sr. Robert, with improvements," n.d., [c. 1792?], 221 x 307 mm. (8 3/4 x 11 13/16 in.), apparently a reduced copy of Robert de Vaugondy's 1755 map (cf. William P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, Chapel Hill, 1973, no. 295).
The series of English Pilot books was started in 1671 by John Seller, whose charts derived from the Dutch pilot books of Pieter Goos. "Seller's English Pilot initiated the independent production of pilot books in England which ultimately overcame Dutch predominance" (Koeman, IV, p. xiii). "For British trading in North America and for the colonists there, the publication of The English Pilot: The Fourth Book must have been a godsend. For the first time an English sea atlas presented charts of the whole eastern seacoast of North America. To modern eyes the charts are crude and sparse of detail; but to the navigator of American waters in that period, it was his Bible. Whatever its shortcomings, there was really no substitute, no real competitor, for over sixty years"--William P. Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America (Chicago & London 1974), p. 39; Wing E3108; Tooley, Maps and Map-makers, p. 61; Sabin 22616. The rarity of this edition making the collation uncertain, this lot is sold not subject to return.
Provenance: The Admiralty Office Library, ink-stamps on title and final page.
FIRST EDITION OF "THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT COLLECTION OF CHARTS EXCLUSIVELY OF THE AMERICAN COASTS TO BE PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND" (Cumming, p. 39), 15 engraved charts: one large double-sheet folding chart, 13 mapsheets (all but one on thick unwatermarked paper), and 1 half-sheet, numerous small woodcut detail charts and coastal profiles in the text, with an additional inserted map, tipped in to the first leaf of the sixth chart,"Part of North America, comprehending the Course of the Ohio, New England, New York, [etc.]...From the Sr. Robert, with improvements," n.d., [c. 1792?], 221 x 307 mm. (8 3/4 x 11 13/16 in.), apparently a reduced copy of Robert de Vaugondy's 1755 map (cf. William P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, Chapel Hill, 1973, no. 295).
The series of English Pilot books was started in 1671 by John Seller, whose charts derived from the Dutch pilot books of Pieter Goos. "Seller's English Pilot initiated the independent production of pilot books in England which ultimately overcame Dutch predominance" (Koeman, IV, p. xiii). "For British trading in North America and for the colonists there, the publication of The English Pilot: The Fourth Book must have been a godsend. For the first time an English sea atlas presented charts of the whole eastern seacoast of North America. To modern eyes the charts are crude and sparse of detail; but to the navigator of American waters in that period, it was his Bible. Whatever its shortcomings, there was really no substitute, no real competitor, for over sixty years"--William P. Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America (Chicago & London 1974), p. 39; Wing E3108; Tooley, Maps and Map-makers, p. 61; Sabin 22616. The rarity of this edition making the collation uncertain, this lot is sold not subject to return.
Provenance: The Admiralty Office Library, ink-stamps on title and final page.