An unusual pocket atlas with the maps pasted back-to-back and no titlepage. The maps were all first published by John Seller. The first map is a double hemisphere world first published c.1677 according to Shirley in ‘A Pocket Book’ (BL Maps C.21.a.6). This later state with the addition of ‘Made and Sold by Cha Price and Iohn Senex in Cornhill London’ to the title is not recorded. The continental maps, with North and South America separate, were first issued to accompany ‘A New Systeme of Geography’ first published late 1684.

John Seller (1632-97) had two sons, the eldest had received an advance of £500 to set up in business on his own. Hence on his father’s death in 1697 it was the younger son Jeremiah (fl.1699-1705) who inherited two-thirds of the business with the remaining one-third being left to his widow Elizabeth. Together they continued the business. From about 1699 they went into partnership with Charles Price (1679?-1733) who had been apprenticed to his father, Price had been a witness to John Seller senior’s will.

Together they published editions of the ‘Atlas Coelestis’, the ‘Pocket Book’, and the ‘New Systeme of Geography’ with John Senex in 1703. Folio sea atlases were also issued. I have collated three examples of the latter work at the New York Public Library, the Newberry Library, and the Huntington Library and all three contain all the continental maps, but not this world. Tyacke illustrates a catalogue of theirs dating to about 1705 which does not refer to any work like this.

In 1703 the partnership began to work in association with John Senex (1678-1740) publishing amongst other works an edition of the ‘New System of Geography’ dated 1703. In 1705 Seller lost the lucrative contract with the Navy for the supply of instruments and appears to have left the business. Wardington referred to bankruptcy but without citing a source. The partnership of Seller and Price ended, and Price appears to have retained some of the plates. Price then continued in partnership with Senex when clearly their joint imprint was applied to the world map found here. The address in Cornhill relates to that ‘next to the Fleece Tavern in Cornhill’ which they jointly occupied through 1706 before moving to Whites-Alley, Coleman Street in 1707 until 1710. Provenance: Bloomsbury Book Auctions 26 May 1994 lot 242; Burden collection. Shirley (1993) no. 497 and Addenda at the beginning; Shirley (2004) T.Sell 4a no. 1 & T.Sell 7a; Sotheby’s Wardington sale 10 October 2006 lots 462 & 463; Tooley’s Dictionary (1999-2004); Tyacke (1978) pp. 136-8; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).