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Description

Nice example of John Ogilby's decorative map of the America and the Pacific, including New Zealand.

Engraved by Francis Lamb, Ogilby's map of America is one of the earliest maps of the American Continent to have been engraved and printed in London and the first London published map to follow the Visscher-De Wit model, which became the standard "Dutch" map of America in the later part of the Golden Age of Dutch Cartography.

The map shows California as an Island on the first Sanson Projection, but omits the Great Lakes (following Visscher's map), a curious northeasterly coastline north of the Island of California and misprojected South America, with tribal vignettes in Brazil. The map predates La Salle's information on the interior of North America, but includes excellent detail in Canada and the East Coast of North America, noting the Dutch Possessions, the Iroquois regions, N. Anglia, New Amsterdam, the Cheaspeake, Plymouth, and many Indian Place names.

Ogilby's map is based upon Nicholas Visscher's map of 1658 (Burden 332), in that it includes the coastline New Zealand and the early Sanson model for California, and only shows one of hte Great Lakes, which is updated from Visscher's edition. Visscher in turn drew his information from Joan Blaeu's wall map of the World, pubished in 1648. The map departs in a number of ways from the Visscher, most notably the anglicizing of many of the names and includes P. Sr. F Drake on the California Coastline. Boston, N. London and Milford are shown for the first time in this series of maps and New Amsterdam is re-named New York. The nomenclature on the east coast is also largely English, including New England, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina, along with a number of English River names.

This is also the first appearance of the name Hilton Head on a printed map.

This map appeared in John Ogilby's seminal work on America, entiled America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World, published in London in 1671. Ogilby's work is an English translation of Arnoldus Montanus' Die Nieuwe en onbekende Weereld…, published in Amerstdam, although greatly expanded in some instances and with new maps and views. 

The title cartouche includes a dedication to Anthony Ashley and a coat of arms.  There are two states of the map, one of which is not referenced in Burden or McLaughlin.  Burden illustrates the example with 4 sections in the escucheon below the crown.  The other  state has only 2 sections.

Condition Description
Narrow margins, as issued. Minor foxing. Repaired fold split at lower right.
Reference
McLaughlin, G. 51; Tooley, R.V. (Amer) p.121, #35; Burden II, 417.
John Ogilby Biography

John Ogilby (1600-1676) was an English geographer and publisher, one of the most prominent of the seventeenth century. Little is known of his early life but by 1619 he was apprenticed to John Draper, a dancing-master in London. He worked as a dancing-master, courtier, and theater owner form 1620-1641. From 1649 he worked as a poet, translator, and publisher of classical texts. It is only in the last decade of his life that he entered into geography.

In 1649, Ogilby published his first translation, of Virgil, and continued to put out translations in the 1650s and 1660s. In March 1661 he was reconfirmed as master of revels in Ireland and appointed master of the king’s imprimeries, or king’s printer. From 1662 to 1665 he was in Ireland, where he most likely met Robert Boyle. He returned to London only to lose much of his printing stock in the Great Fire of 1666. Post-fire, he became assistant surveyor to the city, where he met Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren.

In 1669, Ogilby published Embassy to China. At the same time, he planned to release atlases that would cover the entire world. These atlases would be funded via subscriptions, advertisements, and lotteries—all common practice at the time, especially for expensive multi-volume works. He released Africa and Atlas Japannensis in 1670, America in 1671 and Atlas Chinensis in 1671, and Asia in 1673. Ogilby compiled the works based on materials produced by others and they reflect a growing interest in the wider world within England.

In 1671, while producing the atlases, Ogilby secured another royal title, that of his Majesty’s cosmographer. He used this title when publishing Britannia in 1675, his best-known work. The Britannia is best described as a road atlas; it shows 2519 miles of road in 100 strip maps. This technique would be widely adopted in the subsequent century. His method of measuring with a waywiser, a large wheel, also helped to standardize the distance of the English mile at 1760 yards. The Britannia was a major achievement in early English cartography and was republished in 1698, 1719, and 1720.