Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1617.. [16],799,[45]pp. Small quarto. Later vellum with pigskin ties, manuscript title on spine, brand on top edge.... More

Lima: Francisco del Canto, 1617.. [16],799,[45]pp. Small quarto. Later vellum with pigskin ties, manuscript title on spine, brand on top edge. Modern bookplate on front pastedown. Internally clean. Near fine. In a cardboard slipcase. First edition of the "first American work with substantial portions devoted to law of the sea and customs regulating sea-borne commerce" (JCB Maritime Books 459). A general encyclopedia of legal knowledge concerning trade by land and sea, it was drawn up for the use of merchants, agents, navigators, lawyers and consuls. It was reprinted nine times in Spain in the 17th century and fifteen more times in the 18th century. By the nature of its subject, it clearly was an important and heavily used reference, and consequently has become rare, especially in fine condition. This is the first major work on commerce, banking, and trade published in the New World, and stands among a mere handful of books to be first printed in the Americas and then exported to Spain. At the time of publication there were only three presses in the New World, in Mexico City, Puebla, and in Lima. The book's printer, Francesco del Canto, was the successor to Peru's first printer, Antonio Ricardo, who began printing in South America in 1585. This is the most extensive work published in South America up to the time, and surpassed only by a few works published in Mexico in all of the New World. A very rare work, with only two copies traced at auction in at least 100 years. Not in HAS, Salva, Kress or Sabin. A lovely copy of an early Lima imprint and an Americanum of surpassing importance. MEDINA (LIMA) 73. PALAU 114526. Less

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London: "Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms", "1733" [but circa 1735]. Folio. (20 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches). Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very... More

London: "Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms", "1733" [but circa 1735]. Folio. (20 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches). Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very fine full contemporary hand-colouring (with twenty-two integral inset views and plans) on 15 double-page and 5 single-page sheets, with full contemporary hand-colouring, mounted on guards throughout. (Without the table of contents leaf as usual, and without the double-page key map by Toms). Expertly bound to style in half 18th-century russia over original 18th-century marbled paper-covered boards, spine gilt with red morocco spine label, modern blue morocco-backed cloth box, titled in gilt. A monument to 18th-century American cartography: a highly attractive fully- coloured copy of the first large-scale map of North America, and the first printed map to show the thirteen colonies. Popple maps with full contemporary colour are exceedingly rare. Popple produced this map under the auspices of the Lord Commissioners of Trade and Plantations to help settle disputes arising from the rival expansion of English, Spanish and French colonies. "France claimed not only Canada, but also territories drained by the Mississippi and it's tributaries - in practical terms, an area of half a continent" (Goss The Mapping Of North America p.122.) The present copy of Popple's map, with its full contemporary hand-colouring, would have been particularly useful in these disputes. Mark Babinski in his masterly monograph on this map notes that 'The typical coloring of fully colored copies ... is described best by a contemporary manuscript legend on the end-paper affixing the Key map to the binding in the King George III copy at the British Library: "Green - Indian Countrys. Red - English. Yellow - Spanish. Blue - French. Purple - Dutch." The careful demarcation of the disputed areas by colour would have made the identification of whether a particular location was in one or another 'zone' a great deal easier. Thus the colouring adds a whole new dimension to a map that is usually only seen in its uncoloured state, and perhaps suggests that the copies with full hand-colouring were originally produced for some as-yet-unrediscovered official use to do with the international land disputes of the time. Benjamin Franklin, on May 22, 1746, ordered two copies of this map, "one bound the other in sheets," for the Pennsylvania Assembly. It was the only map of sufficient size and grandeur available - and the map is on a grand scale: if actually assembled it would result in a rectangle over eight feet square. Its coverage extends from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland to about ten degrees west of Lake Superior, and from the Great Lakes to the north coast of South America. Several of the sections are illustrated with handsome pictorial insets, including views of New York City, Niagara Falls, Mexico City, and Quebec, and inset maps of Boston, Charles-Town, Providence, Bermuda, and a number of others. "Little is known of Henry Popple except that he came from a family whose members had served the Board of Trade and Plantations for three generations, a connection that must have been a factor in his undertaking the map, his only known cartographic work" (McCorkle America Emergent 21.) Babinski has made a detailed study of the issues and states of the Popple map. This copy is in Babinski's state 6: the imprint on sheet 20 reads "London Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms 1733" (i.e. without R. W. Searle's name), sheet one includes the engraved figure "l" in the upper left corner just above the intersection of the two neat lines and engraved sheet numbers have been added to the upper right corners of each sheet. Mark Babinski Henry Popple's 1733 map (New Jersey, 1998) (ref); Brown Early Maps of the Ohio Valley 14; cf. Cumming The Southeast in Early Maps 216, 217; Degrees of Latitude 24, state 4 (but with engraved number to sheet 1); E. McSherry Fowble Two Centuries of Prints in America 1680-1880 (1987), 6, 7; cf. John Goss The Mapping of North America (1990) 55 (key map only); Graff 3322; Howes P481, "b"; Lowery 337 & 338; McCorkle America Emergent 21; Phillips Maps p.569; Sabin 64140; Schwartz & Ehrenberg p.151; Streeter Sale 676; Stephenson & McKee Virginia in Maps, map II-18A-B. Less

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Philadelphia. 1759.. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Sheet size: 3 sheets, each approximately 31 x 21 1/2 inches. Excellent condition,... More

Philadelphia. 1759.. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Sheet size: 3 sheets, each approximately 31 x 21 1/2 inches. Excellent condition, with three short repaired tears, very minor age toning at the sheet edges, overall in remarkable unsophisticated condition. Provenance: Laird U. Park (Sotheby's New York, Nov. 29, 2000, lot 322). The first map of Pennsylvania to be published in America. Scull (1687-1761) was born in Philadelphia and is thought to have been apprenticed at a young age to William Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme. In 1719 he became deputy surveyor of Philadelphia County, eventually ascending to the surveyor generalship of Pennsylvania in 1748. An original member of Benjamin Franklins Junto, Scull was intimately involved with Indian relations of the period, having travelled amongst the tribes surveying the western counties. Siding with the Proprietors in his recollection of the Walking Purchase, at which he was present, no doubt held him in good standing with the Penn family. It is thought that this, in part, led to the publication of this impressive map. Dedicated to the Proprietors, it is among the largest and finest maps produced in America to that date. The map depicts Philadelphia, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and York Counties, and is based on Sculls own surveys as well as the reports of Major Joseph Shippen, Colonel John Armstrong, John Watson, Benjamin Lightfoot, and others. In addition, some information was gleaned from printed sources, including Fry-Jefferson's important map, evidenced by a printed footnote on the map concerning the location of Fort Cumberland and the Maryland- Pennsylvania border. Elevation is accurately depicted, much in the style of Fry-Jefferson, by neat hachure marks. The eastern counties include a wealth of detail, such as churches, meeting houses, inns, iron forges, mills, and the manors of significant residents; roads, Indian paths, Indian towns, and forts are clearly shown throughout. Although generally quite accurate, it is curious that Scull included Fort Granville on his map, which had been destroyed by the French and Delaware Indians in 1756. Nevertheless, the importance and accuracy of this large-scale map is underscored by the fact that a copy of it was among the maps hung by the Board of War at Philadelphia in August 1776, twenty years after the map's publication (as listed by John Adams in his letter to his wife dated Aug. 13, 1776). The map was engraved by James Turner (d. 1759), a Philadelphia silversmith and prot? of Benjamin Franklin. Turner had previously worked on map engraving during the production of James Parker's 1747 maps of New Jersey, a project for which he had been recommended by Franklin. Little is known about the printer, John Davis. Although he had no shop, he appears to have specialized in large copperplate engravings of maps, as he is the printer identified in the imprint of the 1756 Philadelphia first edition of Joshua Fisher's important chart of Delaware Bay. That map and the present one are his only known works. Scull's 1759 map of Pennsylvania is very rare, with less than a dozen known institutional copies. Only a few have appeared at auction in the last half century, most notably in the sales of the collections of Thomas W. Streeter, Howard E. Welsh, and Laird U. Park (this copy). EBERSTADT 167:430 (quoting Wroth). EVANS 8489. Garrison, "Cartography of Pennsylvania before 1800" in PMHB, Vol. 59, no. 3. PHILLIPS, p.673. RISTOW, pp.52-53. STREETER SALE 965. WHEAT & BRUN 422. Less

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