Purchas, Samuel

Together 5 volumes, the complete 4 parts and the supplemental Pilgrimage comprising the fifth volume, folio (13 x 8 5/8 in.; 330 x 213 mm). Engraved additional title (second issue, dated 1625; usually wanting), 7 double-page or folding maps (the Virginia map in volume 4 in Verner's state 7, that of China in volume 3 loosely inserted and on a slightly smaller sheet), 81 smaller engraved maps in the text by Hondius, plus the additional double-hemisphere map tipped in at p. 65 in volume 1 (see Sabin, p. 118), numerous engraved or woodcut illustrations, with the blank leaf R4 in volume 1 (frequently wanting); ink inscriptions on title-pages of volumes 2 and 3, the 5 volumes affected by occasional browning, a few marginal tears, some offsetting of engravings onto text, a few natural flaws and rust-holes, and the following minor defects: volume 1: H1 lower fore-corner torn away without loss of text, slight tear in 2C4, splash marks on 4Q2 (recto and verso); volume 2: repaired tear at inner corner of 4Y just touching edge of map of Barbaria and Egypt, 6F2 lacking upper fore-corner, 6H frayed along outer edge with slight loss affecting map of "Terra Sancta" on verso, map of Germany (p. 1244) shaved to neat line along outer edge, tear in 6Y along lower platemark of map of Europe (no loss), small hole in 8P3; volume 4: repaired tear in 5V6 lower margin, slight loss to lower outer edge of 6C3 and 7D6, printing flaw affecting map of England on 8B2v, faint waterstaining and a small stain on double-page map of China. Eighteenth-century calf gilt, marbled edges and endpapers; rebacked, retaining original spines, some wear.

Charles Tennant (armorial bookplates on front pastedowns) — Sotheby's London, 4 December 1997, lot 154 — acquired by Bernadette and William M. B. Berger, Denver

Borba de Moraes II, pp. 692–93; Church 401A; European Americana 625/173; Hill 1403; Sabin 66682–86; STC 20509 & 20508.5

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
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First edition, volumes 1–4; volume 5 (supplemental volume), fourth edition.

"[O]ne of the most important collections of voyages and travels in the English language" (Sabin), containing some 1200 separate narratives of discovery and exploration. many of the accounts published by Purchas were not previously or otherwise published. Purchas also incorporates many translations of early travel accounts, and he gives some of the earliest examples in an English book of several oriental languages.

The fourth volume includes extended material on English voyages, the colonization of North America and the Virginia map. Though his editorial methods are often compared unfavorably with Hakluyt's, his work was probably more influential and more widely read. The work took more than three years to print, and was the largest book published on an English press up to that time.

The double-page maps include Virginia, New England, and New France, and the infamous Henry Briggs map of North America. It was the latter map which sparked more than a century of controversy among mapmakers as to the true nature of California. Engraved by Reynold Elstrackø, the first map of its kind in English, it was copied by Speed, Jansson, and many others.

The text of this copy corresponds to Sabin's description of the first issue, but with the pagination between pp. 217 and 228 in volume 1 as in the Astor copy (Sabin 66683).