Sign In

The First Views of the American Southeast

Hariot's Virginia with John White's Illustrations and Map

"One of the most significant cartographical milestones in colonial North American history" - Burden

A very nice example of the De Bry first Latin edition, first issue of Hariot's Virginia, one of the greatest early illustrated works of Americana - the first published visual record of the American Southeast based on actual observation. Hariot's Virginia is illustrated with a suite of fine copperplate engravings after watercolors by John White and includes an important early map of Virginia. The two-page map of Virginia is among the most imporant colonial American maps. The present example of the text conforms to all the points of the first issue of the first edition as described in Church 140, with the exception of lacking the blank leaf D6.

The publication of Hariot's Virginia ushered in Theodor de Bry's renowned "Great Voyages" series, being volume 1 of that famous collection. The Hariot is by far the most important of the De Bry Great Voyages, both for intrinsic merit and influence, as well as for modern day ethnographic and historical value.  An earlier publication of Hariot's text only was issued in 1588 in London, but that book did not have illustrations. For the volume in hand De Bry and his stable of highly skilled engravers added 22 finely detailed copperplate engravings based on John White's watercolors from the Roanoke English settlement. For good measure, De Bry included five additional plates purporting to be authentic depictions of the Picts, ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, here intended to show that early Britain was home to people every bit as primitive as the natives of Virginia. There is also an attractive engraving of Adam and Eve.

In 1585 the English colonists Thomas Hariot and John White recorded their first-hand observations of life in the ill-fated English colony of Roanoke Island, located in present day North Carolina. White, the lieutenant-governor of the colony, composed a number of beautiful watercolors illustrating the region's natural history and notably did a series of amazing renderings of the Carolina peoples, universally considered some of the most accurate illustrations of American Indians before the 19th-century. Some of the original watercolors are in the British Museum, while many others have been lost or destroyed. In 1589 Theodor De Bry went to London and met with Richard Hakluyt, who showed him White's original watercolors of the Virginia colony and Hariot's journal. De Bry followed Hakluyt's advice, synthesized Hariot's text and White images, producing this iconic book upon returning to Frankfurt in 1590. The work was printed in English, Latin, French and German, and was influential from the start, particularly for encouraging the initial European settlement of British North America.

De Bry's engravings are the most important and accurate illustrations of North Americans published in the century after Columbus. His plates made White's and Le Moyne's work widely known, introduced a generation of Europeans to the people of America, and in his comparison of Virginians to Picts foreshadowed the development of modern anthropology - Reese & Miles.

Summary from America Pictured to the Life (Mellon Bequest to Yale):

The decades-long project of Theodor de Bry and his sons to publish a multi-volume set documenting the grand voyages to America exemplifies the complicated, inconsistent, and confusing effort of Europeans to represent the story of their initial contact with America. For the first volume in the series, published in 1591 [sic?], de Bry worked closely with an eyewitness artist, John White, to illustrate Thomas Hariot's account of the English colony at Roanoke... The multiple sources and story lines that developed within de Bry's volumes reflect the tensions that appear in many illustrated histories. Pictures could be used to reinforce or to diminish the themes of the written text. Like words, they could be more or less accurate representations of the events they described, meant to reveal or to obscure. Whether "true" or "false," they have proven useful evidence for contemporary scholars attempting to understand better the values, interests, and attitudes of their makers as well as the nature of public discourse about the past... - Miles & Reese.

The double-page map of Virginia, Americae pars, Nunc Virginia is Burden state 2, as usual in this book, with the superimposed C of the I in Ihesepiooc. Burden calls the map:

... the most accurate map drawn in the sixteenth century of any part of that continent... This is the first map to focus on Virginia (now largely North Carolina), and records the first English attempts at colonisation in the New World.

The plates, which are almost always found in a mix of states, are as follows. English titles provided here for convenience, and not actually printed on the plates of this Latin ediiton.

• [I]. Adam and Eve. First state, with the signature at lower right of the plate "Theodore de Bry Sc."
• II. The Arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia. Anglorumin Virginiam aduentus. First state.
• III. A Weroan or Great Lord of Virginia. Regulorum aut Principum in Virginia typus. Second state.
• IIII. One of the Chief Ladies of Secota. Nobilis Matrona ex Secota. Second state.
• V. One of the Religious Men in the Town of Secota. Sacerdos Secotensis. Second state.
• VI. A Young Gentle Woman Daughter of Secota. Nobilis Virgo ex Secota. Second state.
• VII. A Chief Lord of Roanoac. Proceres Roanoack. Second state.
• VIII. A Chief Lady of Pomeiooc. Nobilis Matrona Pomeioocensis. Second state.
• IX. An Aged Man in his Winter Garment. Senis Pomeioocensis hiberna vestis. Second state.
• X. How the Chief Ladies of the Town of Dasemunkepeuc carry their Children and Dress. Vt Matronae Dasamonquepeuc liberos gestant. First state, without extra waterfowl beneath canoe.
• XI. The Conjurer. Prestigiator. Second state.
• XII. The Way in Which They Make Boats. Lintrium consiciendorum ratio. Second state.
• XIII. The Manner of Fishing in Virginia. Incolarum Virginiae piscandiratio. First state.
• XIIII. The Broiling of Their Fish over the Flames. Crates lignea in quapisces vstulant. First state.
• XV. The Seething of Their Meat in Earthen Pots. Fictilium vasorum in quibus cibum coquunt forma. Second state.
• XVI. Their Sitting at Meat. Sumendi cibum modus. First state.
• XVII. The Manner of Praying with Rattles About the Fire. Solennefestum ad ignem celebrandiratio. First state.
• XVIII. Their Dances Which They Used at Their High Feasts. Virginiensium saltandi ratio solennibus festis. First state.
• XIX. The Town of Pomeiooc. Oppidum Pomeiooc. First state.
• XV. The Town of Secota. Oppidum Secota. First state.
• XXI. The Idol Kiwasa. Idolum Kiwasa. First state.
• XXIII. The Tomb of Their Weroans or Chief Lords. Aliquot Heroum Virginiae Notae. First state.
• Pict I. The True Picture of One. Picti icon. First state.
• Pict II. The True Picture of a Woman. Feminae Pictae icon. First state.
• Pict III. The True Picture of a Young Daughter of the Picts. Virginis Pictae icon. Second state of the plate, with "angular" topped 3.
• Pict IIII. The True Picture of a Man of the Neighbouring Nation to the Picts. Alterius viri Pictis vicini icon. First state.
• Pict V. The True Picture of a Woman of the Neighbouring Nation to the Picts. Feminae Pictis vicinae icon. First state.

Streeter, who makes a reference to the fact that all known examples have mixed states of the plates, citing Sobolewski, the famous Russian collector of De Bry, quoted by Sabin:

"...after having consulted a considerable number of copies, which had remained in their ancient binding, the two impressions [i.e. issues of the plates] of the first edition are always to be found mingled... and that it is impossible to decide the question of priority" - M. Sobolewski.

The plates to this work, after Captain John White, are among the few authentic records that exist of the earliest history of the Southeast coast, or of any part of the New World, as is the text which is the Latin translation of Hariot's famous description of Virginia - Streeter.

We might allow Boies Penrose the last word on Hariot and White:

Sir Walter Raleigh's earlier interest, the Roanoke Island colony, gave rise to a classic account by a brilliant young protégé of Sir Walter's, celebrated alike as a mathematician and a free-thinker. This was [Thomas Hariot's report on Virginia], who had visited Virginia with the first colonists in 1585-86. John White's water-color drawings of Virginia (now in the British Museum) are among the most precious documents of our American heritage - Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420-1620.

Rarity

Nice complete examples with all the plates and map are scarce in the market.