Purchase, Samuel. Purchas his Pilgrimes in five bookes [with:] Purchas his Pilgrimage. London: 1624-26

PURCHAS, SAMUEL

PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMES IN FIVE BOOKES [WITH:] PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMAGE. LONDON: STANSBY FOR FETHERSTONE, 1624-26

Together 5 volumes, the complete 4 parts, and the supplemental Pilgrimage comprising the fifth volume, folio (13 1/8 x 8 1/4 in.; 334 x 210 mm). Engraved additional title in volume I dated 1624, 7 double-page or folding engraved maps, 81 smaller engraved maps in the text, numerous engraved or woodcut illustrations, volume I includes Hondius's map of the Christian world on p.115, and repeated on p.65, and the blank leaf R4 (frequently wanting); a number of closed marginal tears, a few tears with minor loss of marginal notes, minor paper flaws, a few paper repairs including the Smith map and the engraved title of volume I, some staining and offsetting, minor marginal worming, some foxing. Contemporary calf, spines with raised bands in seven compartments, paper labels to second, covers ruled in blind, edges speckled red; overall rubbed, joints restored. 

First edition of one of the greatest English travel books

Purchas his Pilgrimes is a continuation and enlargement of Hakluyt's The Principal Navigations, which came into the hands of Samuel Purchas around 1620. The work took more than three years to print, and was the largest book published on an English press to that time. Purchas edited oral accounts and manuscripts, translated texts in classical and foreign languages, and reprinted previously published works. His only original contributions came in the form of various editorials scattered through the volumes on, among other things, Solomon's voyage to Ophir, Pope Alexander's bulls of donation of 1493, the "iniquitie" of papal power, the history of Europe, and "Virginia's Verger," an ideological justification for English settlement in Virginia in the wake of the Powhatan uprising of 1622 (Pilgrimes, 4.1809-26).

"This fine collection includes the accounts of Cortés and Pizarro, Drake, Cavendish, John and Richard Hawkins, Queirós, Magellan, van Noort, Spilbergen, and Barents, as well as the categories of Portuguese voyages to the East Indies, Jesuit voyages to China and Japan, East India Company voyages, and the expeditions of the Muscovy Company. The fifth volume of this set of the Pilgrimes is in reality the fourth and best edition of the Pilgrimage" (Hill).

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, to whom this copy belonged, was the heir and son of Sir Robert Fletcher. Fletcher became an important intellectual known for his “fine taste in all manner of polite learning, his curious library,” and as “a cultivator of philosophy and science." Fletcher was “one of the most accomplished Scotchmen of his time," and the culmination of his years as a statesman was the passage of the Act of Union, merging the two crowns (DNB).

LITERATURE:

ESTC 20509 & 20508.5; European Americana 625/173; Borba de Moraes II: 692-93; Church 401A; Hill 1403; Sabin 66682-86

PROVENANCE:

John Jones (signature to various endpapers and leaves) — Andrew Fletcher (signature to title of each volume)