William Camden | Britannia, London, 1607, old reversed calf

Property of Downside Abbey General Trust

William Camden

Britannia, sive florentissimorum regnorum Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio. London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1607

Folio (327 x 225mm.), additional engraved title-page (cut out and mounted), woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, 54 (of 55) double-page engraved maps, single-page engraved maps of Rutland and Anglesey, engraved and woodcut illustrations, old reversed calf, lacking Hh2-3 (map of Middlesex), title-page and following leaf strengthened in gutter and slightly shorter, rebacked with new endpapers

The detailed county maps were engraved by William Hole or William Kip after Saxton or Norden; this is the first edition of Camden's Britannia to contain maps.

LITERATURE:

STC 4508; Skelton, County Atlases 5

PROVENANCE:

Thomas Hill of Sontl[e]y, inscription at head of title-page; D.d Roberts, signature at head of title-page