The English Atlas

by Pitt, Moses (ca. 1639-1697)

Price: $190,000.00
Shipping rates & speeds | 30 Day Return Guarantee Ask bookseller a question | E-mail to a friend

Oxford: Printed at the Theater, for Moses Pitt at the Angel in St.. Pauls Church-Yard, London, 1680-1681-1683-1682, 1680 THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO PUBLISH A GRAND ATLAS IN ENGLISH 4 volumes, folio, printed titles, 2 with small engraved vignettes, engraved portrait of Charles II (mounted), double-engraved plate of Laplanders and 169 double-page and folding maps of Northern Europe. Contemporary paneled calf Provenance: Bookplate of George Tollet Esq.; Library of the Earl of Bradford References: E. G. R. Taylor, "The English Atlas of Moses Pitt, 1680-83," Geographical Journal 95, 4 (April 1940), 292-299; Lloyd Arnold Brown, The World Encompassed, exh. cat. (Baltimore, 1952), n. 172; Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (London, 1983), n. 504. Moses Pitt was neither a cartographer nor a scholar, yet in 1670 he undertook a project that came to be called The English Atlas. Despite the seemingly difficult, if not unrealistic, task at hand--hardly mitigated by the paucity of skilled commercial cartographers in England--Pitt's endeavor was backed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, and his partners included the Dutch map publisher Jan Jansson and the Englishman Steven Stewart. Based on the concept of the Atlas Maior by Joan Blaeu ,Pitt's atlas was to consist of twelve volumes, but only four were completed (covering places "next to the North-pole," Muscovy, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries). Pitt had envisioned the project as a reissue of a Dutch atlas in "English guise"--in which existing Dutch maps would be repackaged with accompanying text in English--whereas his partners envisioned the printing of an atlas with entirely new maps. Such conflicts, along with economic factors and the overly ambitious nature of the project envisioned, eventually led to its demise. After only four parts of the atlas were completed, Pitt was in financial ruin and was imprisoned for debt from 1689 to 1691. Nonetheless, the four volumes that were produced signal the sumptuous nature of the project, as the highest production values were lavished upon it in terms of engraving, paper and coloring. Indeed, this particular example of The English Atlas has superb color, of a quality that is exceptional even among the scarce surviving examples of Pitt's work..

Bookseller Terms of Sale

All items may be returned within 30 days of the sale.