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The Rarest of All Smith Accounts

Very rare early German compilation based on John Smith's account of Virginia and Bermuda (probably taken from Smith's Generall Historie) and Richard Whitbourne's Discourse and Discouery of Nevv-found-land.

This work also contains the rarest issue of John Smith's foundational New England map. The present version of the Smith map - often ascribed to Levinus Hulsius (see Burden 190) first appeared in Part 13 (1617) of Hulsius's Sammlung, an entirely different text than the present Part 20 (1629). The earlier volume contained a German translation of Ralph Hamor's True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia (London, 1615) and comprised only 76 pages.

Levinus Hulsius's collection of voyages, the Sammlung von Sechs und Zwanig Schiffarten, which his heirs extended to 26 volumes after his death in 1606, can be considered a competitor, or perhaps more accurately, a supplement to De Bry's Great and Small Voyages. Hulsius's set is extremely rare, as are the individual volumes. As far back as the Church catalogue (1907) bibliographers have noted that "sets of [Hulsius] in anything approaching completeness are of extreme rarity... even more so than those of De Bry." And Burden points out how the Hulsius series was "known for its accuracy."

This twentieth volume translates parts of Smith's Generall Historie, accompanied by Hulsius's version of the first state of Smith's New England map, originally published in Smith's A Description of New England (London, 1616).  As is the case with the first edition of Smith's map, the present German version of Smith's map also bears the date of 1616, which was revised to 1614 in the second and all subsequent English states of Smith's New England.

Hulsius' map is virtually an exact re-engraving of the very rare first state of this landmark map and includes a fine portrait of Smith, again copied from the original.

Smith's "New England" is both a primary historical source and one of the most influential maps for the early colonial history of America. It was consulted by the Pilgrims prior to their voyage to America, and Smith's laudatory account of the Plymouth area (which Smith named) induced the Pilgrims to settle there, after their first landfall on Cape Cod proved unsatisfactory. Most of the place names on the map were selected by Prince Charles, all of which referred to members of the Royal Family and nobility.

An essential map of New England collectors, here in an exceptionally rare early version.

According to the Church catalogue:

This Part [XX] contains a translation of Whitbourne's Discourse and Discouery of Nevvfound-land, and an Account of Virginia and the Bermuda Islands probably taken from Smith's Generall Historie. These accounts had appeared the year before in the German edition of De Bry's Great Voyages, Part XIII. Plates [2] and [3], which are very rare, are reduced copies of those in De Bry's Great Voyages, Part I., where, however, each figure is on a separate plate.

Justin Winsor hailed Smith's New England map as "the earliest thoroughly accurate map of Massachusetts Bay."

Rarity

This book is extremely rare in the market. Most of the known examples are now long ensconced in distinguished Americana collections now locked away in university libraries. The last separate example noted in RBH, other than the present one, was the Church copy in 1907.

The great Americanist and bibliographer Wilberforce Eames owned the 20th Part (also lacking the plates) as part of his extensive set of Hulsius, sold by Anderson Galleries on April 26, 1910 (Catalog 836, Lot #286).

Church located the following examples: British Museum, Huth, John Carter Brown, Lenox and Ayer Libraries. And OCLC adds examples at: Harvard, University of Virginia, Colonial Williamsburg, Huntington, University of Minnesota (Bell), Yale, 2 German libraries and 2 Dutch universities.