Clive A. Burden LTD. Rare Maps, Antique Atlases, Books and Decorative Prints

The Mapping of North America

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This attractive map of Norfolk is from the ‘Britannia’ which was intended as the third part of Richard Blome’s grand atlas in four volumes announced in 1668. The map is derived from that of John Speed published in 1612. It is dedicated to the Earl of Norwich and displays his coat of arms. Blome (1635-1705) was the son of Jacob Bloome, a member of the Stationers’ Company. Although his family name is written in contemporary documents as Bloome, he himself used Blome. He was made free of the Stationers’ Company in August 1660 at the time of the Restoration of Charles II. According to Skelton, he began as a ruler of paper and a heraldic painter, both features which are seen in his later works. His earliest known work is a geographical treatise published in 1663. From 1667 the first of a series of maps of the world was engraved for ‘A Geographical Description of the Four Parts of the World’ published in 1670. The ‘Britannia’ was lambasted by Bishop Nicolson in 1696 as ‘a most entire piece of theft out of Camden and Speed’ and by Richard Gough in 1780 as ‘a most notorious piece of plagiarism’. Blome himself disclaimed originality claiming in the Preface ‘I do not own myself the Author, but the Undertaker [i.e. publisher] of this work’. One should remember that this was the first edition of Camden’s ‘Britannia’ to be issued with maps since the 1630s. Blome was one of the earliest to finance his works by subscription. One later edition of the work is known in 1677 which survives in just one known example. Frostick (2011) 18; Shirley (2004) T.Blom-2a; Skelton (1970) 90.
BLOME, Richard

A Mapp of the County of Norfolck with its Hundreds

London, 1673
245 x 330 mm., in good condition.
Stock number: 10908
£ 195
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