This attractive map of various islands around the British Isles is from Richard Blome’s edition of William Camden’s ‘Britannia’ which was intended as the third part of his grand atlas in four volumes announced in 1668. It consists of six maps of the Shetland Isles; Isle of Man; Isles of Wight; the Orkneys; Jersey; and Guernsey. The cartography is largely derived from that of John Speed in 1612. Jersey is adorned with the arms of Sir George Carteret (c.1610-80), a native of the island, and prominent in its politics during the English Civil War. Guernsey bears the arms of Sir Christopher Hatton (1632-1706) who became governor in 1670. He was resident in Cornet Castle on the night of 29-30 December 1672 when a lightning strike hit a powder magazine. The resulting explosion killed his mother and wife.Blome’s work 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.Richard 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 maps were openly described as copies of those of Nicolas Sanson in Paris and Blome’s work was derided by earlier commentators. This was a very early phase of English map publishing, and the undertaking was full of peril. Cubbon (1967) ‘Isle of Man’ p. 37; Shirley (2004) T.Blom-2a; Skelton (1970) 90.