To Her Most Sacred Majesty Ann Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland, This Map of Europe According to the Newest and most Exact Observations is most Humbly Dedicated by your Majesties most Obedient Servant Herman Moll Geographer

Book Description

London: Moll, Midwinter, T. Bowles, P. Overton, 1708 [but c. 1720]. Hand- coloured engraving. Excellent condition, except for slight browning, mild marginal foxing and small repair at the top of the center fold. 22 1/2 x 37 1/2 inches. 24 1/4 x 38 1/2 inches. Moll's map of Europe is a good example of his mature cartographic style: large scale, clear, bold, with incidental notes that seem to derive from an exuberant curiosity, quite unlike the more restrained and formal French and Dutch maps of the previous century. Moll was a great admirer of Peter the Great and does not forego this opportunity to illustrate in an inset a canal Peter had dug that connected the Volga and the Don, thus connecting the Caspian and Black Seas. A dotted line illustrates the route one would follow from the place where the Don and Volga meet, through the Black Sea, through the Bosporus, the Aegean and Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The present map was part of Herman Moll's magnificent folio work, a New and Compleat Atlas. Moll was the most important cartographer working in London during his era, a career that spanned over fifty years. His origins have been a source of great scholarly debate; however, the prevailing opinion suggests that he hailed from the Hanseatic port city of Bremen, Germany. Joining a number of his countrymen, he fled the turmoil of the Scanian Wars for London, and in 1678 is first recorded as working there as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas. It was not long before Moll found himself as a charter member of London's most interesting social circle, which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill. It was at this establishment that speculators met to trade equities (most notoriously South Sea Company shares). Moll's coffeehouse circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and William Hacke. From these friends, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was later conveyed in his cartographic works, some appearing in the works of these same figures. Moll was highly astute, both politically and commercially, and he was consistently able to craft maps and atlases that appealed to the particular fancy of wealthy individual patrons, as well as the popular trends of the day. In many cases, his works are amongst the very finest maps of their subjects ever created with toponymy in the English language.

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