Seller, John senior.

Taylor, Tudor & Stuart 352

rare later edition of the atlas, not noted in Phillips, Shirley or the National Maritime Museum.

Seller’s Atlas maritimus was composite in nature and its dating is as problematic as its collation.

In 1677, Seller was forced to enter into partnership with John Thornton, William Fisher, James Atkinson Sr. and Colson to stave off bankruptcy. Colson was a proficient navigator and astronomer, a friend of Greenville Collins and Edmond Halley, and examiner of the boys of Christs Hospital School on behalf of Trinity House. When the partnership ended in 1679, Seller's stock was shared out among the partners. Colson apparently received some printed chart and text sheets, and he “issued” an edition of the Atlas Maritimus with his engraved title-piece, of which this is only the second example traced.

As a late issue of the atlas, the letterpress title, royal privilege and the preface of earlier editions are not present, while the text is the reset version of Seller’s late editions. The contents, with the world map not present, are very similar to the other known example (which had 15 charts, lacking the charts of Lands End to the Cape, the Eastern Mediterranean).

The Atlas maritimus was the first English attempt to challenge the Dutch monopoly in printed sea-atlases. Although many of the charts were based on contemporary Dutch models, probably those of de Wit, Seller’s contribution to the history of chart-publishing cannot be underestimated.

Included in this group of charts is the map A General Chart of the West India's, thought possibly to be the inspiration for Jonathan Swift's famous quatrain from On Poetry, A Rapsody (1733):

So Geographers in Afric-maps,
With Savage-Pictures fill their Gaps;
And o'er unhabitable Downs
Place Elephants for want of Towns (see illustration on previous page)

This copy comprises:

A Generall chart of the Northerne Navigation
A Chart of the North Sea
A Chart of the East Sea
A Chart of the Seacoasts from the Landssend of England to Cape Bona Esperanca
A Chart of England, Scotland and Ireland with the Channell
A Chart of Spaine
A Chart of the Westermost part of the Mediterranean Sea
A Chart of the Eastermost part of the Mediterranean Sea
The Coast of Barbaria
A Chart of Gvinea
A Chart of the Eastermost part of the East Indies
A Chart of the Tartarian Sea
A Chart of the North Part of America
A General Chart of the West India’s [Atlantic]
A Chart of the Western Ocean
A Chart of the West India's [West Indies]
A Chart of the Sea coast of Brazil