With The Earliest Map to Show California as an Island Published by a Woman (and the first set of maps of the 4 continents published by a woman)
Fifth edition ("Corrected & Inlarged by the Author") of Peter Heylyn's highly influential history of the world, here bearing the imprint: "Printed for Anne Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet Streete."
First published in 1652 by Henry Seile and later by his widow Anna Seile in 1663, "Cosmographie," expanded from Heylyn's earlier book "Microcosmus" into a large, detailed volume covering geography and history of America and other regions. The book, known for its detailed maps and geography lessons, was popular and used for education, including by government officials.
The work includes four folding maps of the continents, including a 1666 edition of Americae Nova descriptio, the western hemisphere with California shown as an island, here in Burden's state 3, with the date altered to 1666 and with Seile's name replaced by Philippi Chetwind. Tooley notes the 1652 first issue as "based on Speed's map of 1627, the only change in California being the insertion of the words Nova Albion in large type in the north of the island...."
The map appeared in later editions of Heylin's Cosmographie to 1682. However, following Seile's death, his widow Anne published her own editions. For these she used a further set of plates dated 1663. Clearly she did not inherit her husband's plates. - Burden.
As the map of America has been re-engraved by Robert Vaughan at the direction of Seile's widow Anna, it stands as the earliest map to show California as an Island published by a woman.
The issues, or editions of this work are not clearly defined and scarcely any two copies agree as to engraved and printed title-pages, title-pages to the separate parts, map, etc.... Through all these issues the text was changed scarcely at all, though reset with new introductions, appendices, etc. - Baer.
The other maps present are Chetwind's Europe, Africa and Asia. The text includes a good description of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay area. The chapter titled "Of Viriginia" also covers New England, New Netherlands, Bermuda, Virginia, and with a brief mention of Maryland.
The popular misconception of California as an island can be found on European maps from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. From its first portrayal on a printed map by Diego Gutiérrez, in 1562, California was shown as part of North America by mapmakers, including Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. In the 1620s, however, it began to appear as an island in several sources. While most of these show the equivalent of the modern state of California separated from the continent, others, like a manuscript chart by Joao Teixeira Albernaz I (ca. 1632) now in the collection of the National Library of Brasil shows the entire western half of North America as an island.
The myth of California as an island was most likely the result of the travel account of Sebastian Vizcaino, who had been sent north up the shore of California in 1602. A Carmelite friar, Fray Antonio de la Ascensión, accompanied him. Ascension described the land as an island and around 1620 sketched maps to that effect. Normally, this information would have been reviewed and locked in the Spanish repository, the Casa de la Contratación. However, the manuscript maps were intercepted in the Atlantic by the Dutch, who took them to Amsterdam where they began to circulate. Ascensión also published descriptions of the insular geography in Juan Torquemada’s Monarquia Indiana (1613) (with the island details curtailed somewhat) and in his own Relación breve of ca. 1620.
The first known maps to show California as an island were on the title pages of Antonio de Herrera’s Descripción de las Indias Occidentales (1622) and Jacob le Maire's Spieghel Der Australische Navigatie (1622). Two early examples of larger maps are those by Abraham Goos (1624) and another by Henry Briggs, which was included in Samuel Purchas’ Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625). In addition to Briggs and Goos, prominent practitioners like Jan Jansson and Nicolas Sanson adopted the new island and the practice became commonplace. John Speed’s map (1626-7), based on Briggs’ work, is well known for being one of the first to depict an insular California.
The island of California became a fixture on mid- and late-seventeenth century maps. The island suggested possible links to the Northwest Passage, with rivers in the North American interior supposedly connecting to the sea between California and the mainland. Furthermore, Francis Drake had landed in northern California on his circumnavigation (1577-80) and an insular California suggested that Spanish power in the area could be questioned.
Not everyone was convinced, however. Father Eusebio Kino, after extensive travels in what is now California, Arizona, and northern Mexico concluded that the island was actually a peninsula and published a map refuting the claim (Paris, 1705). Another skeptic was Guillaume De L’Isle. In 1700, De L’Isle discussed “whether California is an Island or a part of the continent” with J. D. Cassini; the letter was published in 1715. After reviewing all the literature available to him in Paris, De L’Isle concluded that the evidence supporting an insular California was not trustworthy. He also cited more recent explorations by the Jesuits (including Kino) that disproved the island theory. Later, in his map of 1722 (Carte d’Amerique dressee pour l’usage du Roy), De L’Isle would abandon the island theory entirely.
Despite Kino’s and De L’Isle’s work, California as an island remained common on maps until the mid-eighteenth century. De L’Isle’s son-in-law, Philippe Buache, for example, remained an adherent of the island depiction for some time. Another believer was Herman Moll, who reported that California was unequivocally an island, for he had had sailors in his offices that claimed to have circumnavigated it. In the face of such skepticism, the King of Spain, Ferdinand VII, had to issue a decree in 1747 proclaiming California to be a peninsula connected to North America; the geographic chimera, no matter how appealing, was not to be suffered any longer, although a few final maps were printed with the lingering island.
Peter Heylen, clergyman and geography, was a Royalist who was forced to follow Charles into exile in 1642. Besides writing religious tracts against the Puritans, he devoted himself to his Geography, first pubished in 1621, then expanded into his Cosmography, first published in 1652.