An exceedingly rare map publisher’s advertisement of which just one example could be traced; at the University of Michigan amongst the papers of Jean Baptiste Tavernier. An extensive search of British Institutions could not locate any example and it is not listed on the English Short Title Catalogue or WorldCat. Leona Rostenberg’s article described in detail the pre-publication of the atlas and although the documents cited included the ‘Proposals’, no mention was made of this Advertisement.

Moses Pitt (1639-97) “is one of many pioneering Englishmen in the field of cartography in the seventeenth century who struggled long and hard, often unsuccessfully. Born in Cornwall in 1641, he made his way to London as a young man. Released from customary apprenticeship in 1661, by 1667, the date of his earliest known publication, he was operating independently. His main area of interest was in scientific works, and he had many connections with the Royal Society, a member of which, Robert Hooke, was one of his largest clients. Hooke had bought numerous travel books and atlases from Pitt and other suppliers in London and had helped John Ogilby considerably on his ‘Britannia’ published in 1675. By the late 1670s the great Dutch atlases of Willem Jansz. Blaeu and Joannes Janssonius had become rarities, and Pitt conceived the idea of an ‘English Atlas’. The diary of Robert Hooke records him examining Pitt’s scheme on 20 March 1678 and he commented ‘His design for Atlas good’. He then took Pitt to Sir Christopher Wren’ shouse where they were examined further. Pitt presented his idea for an eight-volume work containing 202 maps to a meeting of the Royal Society on 28 March 1678. Wren as vice-President was in the chair. A committee of seven fellows was set up to meet weekly and oversee the publication. The task however fell to Robert Hooke. Subsequently, they agreed to support the project. On 3 May 1678 Pitt announced his ‘Proposals’ for an eleven-or twelve-volume work, an example of which survives in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Pitt entered into a contract with Jansson van Waesberge of Amsterdam, who had acquired all of the Janssonius plates at auction in 1676. Hooke complained about the quality of the Jansson plates and work began evidently in Amsterdam to improve them, including the addition of latitude and longitude lines, and the joint imprints of van Waesberge and Pitt. Finally, after numerous delays the first volume was announced in the ‘Term Catalogue’ for November 1680. It incorporated forty-four maps with an alphabetical index of placenames keyed to the plates and identified by latitude and longitude. Two versions of the title page have been found with differing imprints: M. Pitt, at London and J. Jansson van Waesberge & S. Swart, at Amsterdam, both dated 1680. Its sales were disappointing and only a small portion of Hooke’s loan was repaid; later he would refer to Pitt as ‘that rascall’. No expense was spared in its production, even the paper was of the finest quality. The Duke of York was reported to complain ‘of the maps being too small and close a letter’, to which Pitt replied ‘Yes! But … they have a fair margin.’ Van Waesberge died in 1681 and it may be presumed that further financial loads were placed on Pitt to continue the project. Volumes two, three and four appeared by 1683, but none thereafter.

‘On 13 April 1685 Moses Pitt was arrested at Obadiah Walker’s lodgings at Oxford on a suit for 1,000 pounds and was imprisoned in the Fleet from 20 April 1689 to 16 May 1691. He described his troubles in a very interesting little volume, ‘The Cry of the Oppressed, being a true and tragical account of the unparallel’d sufferings of multitudes of poor imprisoned debtors in most of the gaols of England, together with the case of the publisher,’ London, 1691. This contains a remarkable account of the actual condition of prisoners for debt, not in London alone, but in many other towns, as Pitt conducted a large correspondence with fellow sufferers throughout the country. He endeavoured to get a bill passed through parliament for their relief.’ (DNB.) Pitt died in 1697.” (Burden). Burden (2007); not in the ESTC; Hildyard, Daisy (2014) ‘John Pell’s mathematical papers and the Royal Society’s English Atlas, 1678–82’, in ‘BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics’, in vol. 29, issue 1, pp. 18-31; ODNB; Phillips (1909-) no. 2831; Rostenberg (1980); Shirley (2004) T.Pitt-1a no. 3; Skelton (1970) pp. 188-9; Taylor (1937); Taylor (1940).