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TAPP, John (fl. 1596-1631). The Seamans Kalender, or An Ephemerides of the Sun, Moone, and certaine of the most notable fixed Starres. Together with many most needful and necessary matters, to the behoofe and furtherance principally of Marriners and Seamen: but generally profitable to al Travailers, or such as delight in the Mathematicall studies. London: Printed by E. Allde for John Tapp, 1602.
4o (175 x 128 mm). Woodcut vignette of a ship on title, 2 woodcuts in text (one cropped). (Last two leaves of tables shaved at head, some browning.) 19th-century sheep (a bit rubbed). Provenance: Richard Mylne? (early inscriptions on I2v-I3r); Boies Penrose (bookplates; his sale part II, Sotheby's London, 9 November 1971, lot 243, illustrated).
FIRST EDITION of this highly important seaman's manual, in which John Tapp "made his most original contribution to the art of navigation... Its popularity was immense. It was frequently brought up to date. Indeed a fresh edition appeared roughtly every three years. By 1615 it had gone through five editions... (D.W. Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times, New Haven, 1958, p.239, with an extensive explication on the text on pp.239-242).
Tapp states that "Being many times conversant with seamen and marriners whereby I perceived that they... chiefly desired: at my best leysure I made a collection of such Tables and rules as I thought fittest for their purposes and being instantly urged by divers to publish them... I resolved to hazard my papers to the Presse."
VERY RARE: according to American Book Prices Current, no copies of any early edition of The Seamens Kalender have sold in at least 30 years. This copy is the last one recored at auction, when it was sold in the Penrose sale in 1971. Adams & Waters 3520 [Cambridge, British Library, Yale only]; STC 23679 [British Library and Penrose copies only; Bishop adds the NYPL and Rosenbach copies]; Taylor Mathematical Practitioners 104 (giving incorrect 1601 publication date).
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FIRST EDITION of this highly important seaman's manual, in which John Tapp "made his most original contribution to the art of navigation... Its popularity was immense. It was frequently brought up to date. Indeed a fresh edition appeared roughtly every three years. By 1615 it had gone through five editions... (D.W. Waters, The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times, New Haven, 1958, p.239, with an extensive explication on the text on pp.239-242).
Tapp states that "Being many times conversant with seamen and marriners whereby I perceived that they... chiefly desired: at my best leysure I made a collection of such Tables and rules as I thought fittest for their purposes and being instantly urged by divers to publish them... I resolved to hazard my papers to the Presse."
VERY RARE: according to American Book Prices Current, no copies of any early edition of The Seamens Kalender have sold in at least 30 years. This copy is the last one recored at auction, when it was sold in the Penrose sale in 1971. Adams & Waters 3520 [Cambridge, British Library, Yale only]; STC 23679 [British Library and Penrose copies only; Bishop adds the NYPL and Rosenbach copies]; Taylor Mathematical Practitioners 104 (giving incorrect 1601 publication date).