PEMBLE, William.

A Briefe Introduction to Geography ... very necessary for young Students in that Science. Written by that learned Man, Mr William Pemble, Master of Arts, of Magdalen Hall in Oxford.

Oxford, Printed by John Lichfield … for Edward Forrest … 1630. Small 4to., pp. [4], ‘64’ [i.e. 46],[2], with nineteen integral woodcut diagrams and a folding ‘table of the climats’; early manuscript biographical notes on the title verso and the final blank, small rust hole repaired in C1, just catching the odd letter (all legible); modern red half-morocco. First edition. The Briefe Introduction, a popular textbook which reached a fifth edition by 1675, defines its subject as follows: ‘Topographie is a particular description of some small quantity of land … Chorographie is a particular description of some Country … or any shire or province therein … Geographie is an art or science teaching us the generall description of the whole earth’. In his approach, which takes in navigation and cartography, Pemble distrusts Copernicus, relying on contrary personal experience, which he demonstrates through numerous diagrams, particularly those based on ‘the Circles of the Earth’, horizons and zones.The half-page manuscript note on the final blank, which in part quotes Anthony Wood, describes Pemble (1591/2-1623) as ‘a famous preacher, a well studied Artist, a skilled Linguist, a good Orator, an expert Mathematician and an ornament to the Society among whom he lived. All which accomplishments were knit together in a body of about 32 years of age, which had it lived to the age of man, might have proved a prodigy of Learning.’ Like all of Pemble’s works, the Briefe was published posthumously, through the efforts of his former tutor Richard Capel.STC 19571; Madan, I, 151.

• GBP 3,250.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: E1155

• librero: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)