Travel
OGILBY, John
Africa: being an accurate description of the regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid, the land of negroes, Guinee, Aethiopia, and the Abyssines, with all the adjacent islands, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, belonging thereunto. With the several denominations of their coasts, harbors, creeks, rivers, lakes, cities, towns, castles, and villages. Their customs, modes, and manners, languages, religions, and inexhaustible treasure; with their governments and policy, variety of trade and barter, and also of their wonderful plants, beasts, birds, and serpents.
T. Johnson, London 1670. First edition. Folio (43 x 28cm. approx.), xvi, 768pp., half-title, engraved frontispiece, 47 engraved plates and maps as called for in list of plates, most double-page or folding, also with 10 engravings on 5 sheets, not called for in list of plates but present in most copies, 46 engravings in text, contemporary panelled calf gilt, red morocco lettering piece.
Ogilby was Cosmographer to Charles II. "Africa" was the first publication in Ogilby's great project to create an Atlantic or English Atlas designed to increase England's trade and extend her national prestige. Ogilby's idea of an atlas meant not only maps but also available and up-to-date translations of various accounts, principally from Dapper. Although he used the same frontispiece, title-page and maps as Dapper, Ogilby used folio sheets one-third larger than Dapper's which made the volume more impressive. Ogilby also added tales of English interest such as the attack on the "Mary Rose" specifically for the home market. Wing 0163; Tooley, Africa, p87.
Price: £ 12500
US Dollar Price: $ 18790
Stock Number: 69077