Blundeville, Thomas | An important book in the history of navigation—the Tomash copy

Blundeville, Thomas

His Exercises, Containing Sixe Treatises. London: John Windet, 1594

6 parts in one volume, 4to (196 x 145 mm). collation: A-Z⁸Aa-Vvt⁸ Yy⁶. 3 folding woodcut and/or printed plates/tables, woodcut illustrations and diagrams, including 4 with volvelles (at ff. 145, 151 [misnumbered 149], 338v and 350), A1 blank except for printed signature "A" (and old inscriptions); occasional faint spotting and dampstaining, small hole in title due to ink erasure, one volvelle apparently a replacement, short tear to folding plate. Early vellum; a reimboitage.

First Edition. An important book in the history of navigation. Here for the first time the modern forms of the trigonometric functions of sine, tangent and secant were published in English" (Tomash & Williams). The six parts comprise Treatise of arithmetic; The first principles of cosmographie; A plaine description of Mercator and his two globes; Petrus Plancius his universall map; Plaine description of Maister Blagrave his astrolabe; A new and necessarie treatise of navigation. The work includes the voyages of Sir Francis Drake (f. 242v) and Thomas Cavendish (244r), as well as descriptions of China (255v) and the South Pole (271v).

REFERENCES:

Tomash & Williams B180; ESTC S102547; Sabin 6023; STC 3146; USTC 512492

PROVENANCE:

Mattock (signatures on title) — Yorkshire Philosophical Society (old library stamps) — Dr A.W. Spence (bookplate on verso of title, sale in these rooms, 17 March 1958, lot 36a) — Erwin Tomash (his sale, Sotheby's London, 18-19 September 2018, lot 70)