Bry, Theodor de; Johann Theodor de Bry and Johann Israel de Bry

[Hariot's Virginia. Part I of the Great or American Voyages in Latin] Admiranda narratio fida tamen, de commodis et incolarum ritibus Virginiae, ... Anglico scripta sermone a Thoma Hariot. Frankfurt-am-Main: Johann Wechel for Theodor de Bry and Sigismund Feierabend, 1590 [c.1608]

Folio (12 ¾ x 9 in.; 324 x 228 mm). Engraved title to text, letterpress title to plates, engraved arms on dedication leaf, double-page engraved map of Virginia, engraved plate of Adam and Eve in first state with inscription "Iodocus a winghe in Theodore de Bry fe.", 27 very fine engraved plates after John White (including 5 plates of Picts), with colophon leaf F6, D6 blank; worm puncture in upper margin of quire b, a two-inch fold tear at bottom of Virginia map near two small wormholes, tears in lower margin of E6 and F3, tear entering plate 15 and small hole in plate 16 both expertly repaired, washed. Antique limp vellum and modern endpapers.

Church 140–142

Folio (12 ¾ x 9 in.; 324 x 228 mm). Engraved title to text, letterpress title to plates, engraved arms on dedication leaf, double-page engraved map of Virginia, engraved plate of Adam and Eve in first state with inscription "Iodocus a winghe in Theodore de Bry fe.", 27 very fine engraved plates after John White (including 5 plates of Picts), with colophon leaf F6, D6 blank; worm puncture in upper margin of quire b, a two-inch fold tear at bottom of Virginia map near two small wormholes, tears in lower margin of E6 and F3, tear entering plate 15 and small hole in plate 16 both expertly repaired, washed. Antique limp vellum and modern endpapers.
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Second edition, first issue of the esteemed first part of de Bry's Great Voyages, containing Thomas Hariot's account of Virginia, with the title imprint spelling the publisher's name with one "i" at the end ("Feirabendi," Church 142), but with text and most plates having points from the first edition, except plate 3 which is second edition, and plates 4–8, and 11–12 from second issue of the first edition. The well-known facts of the work's publication history, that copies were made up by the publisher with unsold sheets from earlier editions, account for the variability of issues in all known copies.

The iconography disseminated through de Bry's popular compilation of travel narratives dominated the European view of the New World for more than a century after their publication. The exceptional ethnographic engravings in the present part are of special importance for the study of Native American life at the time of the first encroachment of Europeans.

A handsome copy.