America: being the latest, and most accurate description of the New World ... Collected from most authentick authors, augmented with later observations and adorn'd with maps and sculptures, by John Ogilby

Book Description

London: Printed by the Author, 1671. Folio. (16 1/2 x 10 3/8 inches). Ruled in red throughout, title printed in red and black. Engraved frontispiece, 37 plates (6 portraits, 31 views and plans [2 of these folding, 29 double-page]), 19 maps (2 folding, 17 double-page), 66 engraved illustrations. (Portrait facing page 60 expertly remargined, some small neat repairs to margins and folds). Contemporary English paneled calf gilt, covers with paneling tooled with fillets and roll tools, the inner panels with lozenge-shaped stylized floral-spray tools, expertly repaired, the spine in seven compartments with raised bands, green morocco lettering-pieces in the second and third compartments lettered in gilt, edges stained in gilt, modern tan morocco-backed cloth box, lettered in gilt on spine. A very fine large copy of Ogilby's first edition of this important work, here ruled in red for presentation and including the rare Lords Proprietors map of Carolina. The binding, the size and the rubrication of this copy of Ogilby's most important publication all suggest that this copy was prepared for presentation. The ruling in red of a book (an essential part of manuscript production in the Middle Ages) had come to be a costly extra process by the second half of the seventeenth century, and one that was reserved for copies of books intended for presentation. The present copy is also unusual in that it contains the so-called Lords Proprietors map, actually titled "A New Discription [sic.] of Carolina By Order of the Lords Proprietors." Although commissioned by Ogilby for this work, the important map was not included in early issues as it was apparently not available until 1672, and possibly as late as 1675. There is some bibliographic confusion over the various issues of the first edition. We believe that there are three distinct issues, as follows: 1) dated 1671, with both the Arx Carolina plate and the Virginia pars australis map, without the Carolina map, possibly without the Barbados map, and with the plate list including the Arx. and Virginia, but not the Carolina or Barbados. 2) dated 1671, with the Carolina map replacing both the Arx. plate and the Virginia map. The Barbados map is included, but the plate list still includes the Arx. and Virginia, but not the Carolina or Barbados. 3) dated 1671, with the Carolina map replacing both the Arx. plate and the Virginia map. The Barbados map is included, and the plate list has been removed and substituted by a reset cancel that no longer includes either the Arx. or the Virginia. These definitions are somewhat at variance with Cumming Geographical misconceptions, Baer Maryland and European Americana - but they all contradict each other to some degree as well, and none of them agree with either Sabin or Borba de Moraes. This copy, then, is the second issue of the first edition -- the first to include the Carolina map. The work is an English translation of Arnold Montanus De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld, but with a number of additions concerning New England, New France, Maryland and Virginia. The work is divided into three books or sections and an appendix: the first gives an overall survey of the most important voyages and expeditions to the Americas, the second book offers a description of Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, Bermuda and North America, the third deals with South America and the appendix includes a miscellany of information including notes on the "Unknown South-Land," the Arctic region and the search for the North-West passage. Arents 315A; cf. Baer (Md) 70A-C; cf. Borba de Moraes II, 626; Church 613; cf. European Americana 671/204-207; cf. JCB III, 227-228; Sabin 50089; cf. Stokes VI, p.262; K.S. van Eerde John Ogilby and the Tate of His Times p.107; Wing O-165. References for the Carolina map: Cumming Southeast in Early Maps 70; Degrees of Latitude 13.

Not sure what some of these terms mean? Look it up in our glossary.