Ogilby, John

Africa: being an Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid, The Land of Negroes, Guinee, Aethiopia, and the Abyssines ... Their Customs, Modes, and Manners, Languages ... their Wonderful Plants, Beasts, Birds, and Serpents. London: Thomas Johnson for the Author, 1670

Folio (16 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.; 422 x 270 mm). Engraved allegorical title, title printed in red and black, 52 engraved maps and views (of which 2 are folding and 41 double-page), 9 printed tables, 46 engraved text illustrations, engraved head- and tail-pieces (some by W. Hollar); without half-title, light dampstain in lower outer corner of first few quires and on the occasional leaf elsewhere, clean fold tears in lower margins of several plates, clean marginal tear in leaves Vv3 and Ggg5, a few (4) plates with light marginal browning. Contemporary mottled calf, blind-ruled double-line border, blind-tooled central panel with roll-tooled floral border and triangular stamps built up on each side, floral stamps at four corners, spine richly gilt, gilt-stamped red leather title label on spine; rebacked with original spine laid down, edges rubbed, a few scuffs and scratches.

Benjamin Hyett, Gloucestershire (armorial bookplate)

Wing O-1631; Mendelssohn (1979) 3:571; Tooley, Africa, p. 87

First edition. This was the first volume of Ogilby's planned "English Atlas" series, the most authentic and comprehensive work on Africa in English published in the 17th century, of particular interest for the accounts of the natives in southern Africa. The preface, dated 28 April 1670, contains Ogilby's only autobiography noting memories and partly frustrated ambitions.

A tall, crisp and handsome copy.