John Norden is noted as being the first person to undertake a complete series of county histories. Unfortunately he suffered financial issues during his life which limited the reach of the project. This is largely due to “the Puritan tracts he wrote to raise money and his flattering dedication to Essex shortly before the uprising of 1599 set him so far out of political favour that he never received the patronage necessary to finance expensive surveys” (Globe). The first part was successfully published in 1593 which covered Middlesex, Hertfordshire followed in 1598. No others were published during his lifetime but he left a few further county histories in manuscript form. That of Cornwall was written in 1610 but was eventually published in 1728, as offered here. Lowndes states that the text is derived from Richard Carew’s ‘Survey of Cornwall’, 1602, although it is thought Norden was in the county as early as 1584. The manuscript, presented to James I, survives in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library (Harl. MS 6252). In 1971 it was reported that 14 manuscript maps to accompany the text had been rediscovered at Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. 0.4.19). Provenance: Earl of Macclesfield. Globe p. 98; ‘Imago Mundi’ no. 25 p. 100 Chronicle; Lowndes p. 1698; Quixley (1966) no. 25; Shirley BL T.Nord 1a & 1b; Upcott I p. 78.