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WRIGHT, EDWARD. Certaine Errors in Navigation, Detected and Corrected...With many additions that were not in the former edition as appeareth in the next pages (--The Division of the Whole Art of Naviagation [translated from R. Zamorano's Compendio, 1588]. London: F. Kingston 1610. Small 4to, old limp vellum, last six leaves gnawed and defective at lower outer corners affecting catchwords and a few other letters and numerals, title-page worn and rubbed with
partial loss of fore-edge border. Second Edition, engraved title
within a panel border comprising a world map on Mercator's projection
at foot and navigation instruments above, 1 folding woodcut plan
("the draught of the Meridians"), 2 metal engravings, one of them
full-page, and numerous woodcut text diagrams, woodcut initials and
ornaments.
The first edition of Certaine Errors in Navigation appeared in
1599. Wright's methods of chart projection had their basis in
mathematics: he was a colleague of John Napier, the inventor of
logarithms, at Caius College, Cambridge. On the verso of the title-
page to this second edition and continuing on the next page is a
list of 19 "Additions to this edition that were not in the former."
"With rare lucidity, Edward Wright set forth in this book the
mathematical formulae and tables which would greatly increase the
value of the Mercator projection. With these tables a navigator
could plot a straight-line course and at the same time make the
necessary corrections in distance along that line" --The World Encompassed, 167. "When Wright expressed the view that, as a result of his chart projection, the greatest cartographical need remaining was for the accurate determination of the geographical
position of places, he was correct.... But what made this [second]
edition of Certaine Errors into a navigation manual suitable for
all seamen was the inclusion of a translation, made by a friend, of
a standard Spanish navigation manual of 1588, Zamorano's Compendio del Arte de Navegar... This, it should be noted was the third
Spanish navigation manual of the sixteenth century to be translated
into English and to become a standard English work."--D.W. Waters,
The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart
Times (New Haven 1958), pp. 224, 317, Plate LXXIII; STC 26020;
Sabin 105573 ("World map on engraved title page is one of the first
to mention Virginia. It does not appear in the first edition but was
reengraved for the third edition").
partial loss of fore-edge border. Second Edition, engraved title
within a panel border comprising a world map on Mercator's projection
at foot and navigation instruments above, 1 folding woodcut plan
("the draught of the Meridians"), 2 metal engravings, one of them
full-page, and numerous woodcut text diagrams, woodcut initials and
ornaments.
The first edition of Certaine Errors in Navigation appeared in
1599. Wright's methods of chart projection had their basis in
mathematics: he was a colleague of John Napier, the inventor of
logarithms, at Caius College, Cambridge. On the verso of the title-
page to this second edition and continuing on the next page is a
list of 19 "Additions to this edition that were not in the former."
"With rare lucidity, Edward Wright set forth in this book the
mathematical formulae and tables which would greatly increase the
value of the Mercator projection. With these tables a navigator
could plot a straight-line course and at the same time make the
necessary corrections in distance along that line" --The World Encompassed, 167. "When Wright expressed the view that, as a result of his chart projection, the greatest cartographical need remaining was for the accurate determination of the geographical
position of places, he was correct.... But what made this [second]
edition of Certaine Errors into a navigation manual suitable for
all seamen was the inclusion of a translation, made by a friend, of
a standard Spanish navigation manual of 1588, Zamorano's Compendio del Arte de Navegar... This, it should be noted was the third
Spanish navigation manual of the sixteenth century to be translated
into English and to become a standard English work."--D.W. Waters,
The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart
Times (New Haven 1958), pp. 224, 317, Plate LXXIII; STC 26020;
Sabin 105573 ("World map on engraved title page is one of the first
to mention Virginia. It does not appear in the first edition but was
reengraved for the third edition").