Smith, John

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 USD

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Description

The true travels, adventures, and observations of Captaine John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Affrica, and America, from anno Domini 1593. to 1629. His accidents and sea-fights in the straights; his service and stratagems of warre in Hungaria, Transilvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, against the Turks, and Tartars ... After how he was taken prisoner by the Turks, sold for a slave ... and escaped ... Together with a continuation of his generall History of Virginia, Summer-Iles, New England, and their proceedings, since 1624 to this present 1629; as also of the new plantations of the great river of the Amazons, the iles of St. Christopher, Nevis, and Barbados in the West Indies... London: by J[ohn]. H[aviland] for Thomas Slater, 1630
paper, ink, leather

Folio (290 x 190 mm). Smith's arms engraved on title verso, folding plate (second state), extra-illustrated with 54 portraits of Smith's contemporaries including Drake, Sydney and Elizabeth; repair to one corner of title, fore-margins a little rubbed. Recased in old calf.

Literature

STC 22796; Church 417; Sabin, 82871

Catalogue Note

first edition, with the errors uncorrected. Following the planting of the first permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown in 1607 printed accounts of the colony began to appear. "In these publications the name of Captain John Smith is pre-eminent, not only because he was one of the principal actors, but also because he was possessed of a literary skill and fluency which made him the self-appointed historiographer of the infant colony" (Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, p.321). The True Travels, Adventures and Observations is effectively a supplement to his authoritative and most important work, The Generall Historie of Virginia (1624).

"A tale of blood-curdling adventure" which "related his earlier escapades as well as a sound dissertation on pirates" (Paine (L.) Captain John Smith and the Jamestown Story, p. 198)