This desirable map is the FIRST PUBLISHED IN AN ATLAS TO DEPICT CALIFORNIA AS AN ISLAND, and an accurate east coast of North America, particularly between Chesapeake Bay and Cape Cod. John Speed was a historian, but his most famous book is the ‘Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine’, first published in 1611. This was an atlas of the British Isles that appeared in many editions. Before his death he produced ‘A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World’, [in 1627]. Although published separately it is most often found bound with the ‘Theatre …’ This work was the first general atlas of the world produced in England. For these maps, as with those earlier, Speed looked to the Low Countries, the centre of the European map trade at the time, to have them engraved. This particular one was the work of Abraham Goos, who had spent time in London like many of the Dutch engravers.

“Goos drew on his engraving of North America in 1624, and the Henry Briggs 1625, to depict California as an island once more. He was the only Dutch cartographer to do so for some considerable time. There are five fewer place-names in California than the Briggs. However, like his earlier one he includes a similar faint north-west coastline and Strait of Anian. Brasil and Frisland, remnants from the sixteenth century, make a stubborn appearance in the North Atlantic. The fledgling colonies of Plymouth in New England, and ‘Iames Citti’ in Virginia, are both recognised. Decorating the whole are three attractive borders. The two sides illustrate the natives of the continent; the left bears those of the north, and the right those of the south. Despite the map’s obvious attention to the English presence in North America, none of the eight towns represented in the third are from that part. This is owing to the relative lack of any contemporary views to draw upon.

“The 1627 edition was published by George Humble, who reissued it in 1632. After his death in 1640, his eldest son, William, continued with an edition in 1646. It then appears that it was issued irregularly during the early 1650s still bearing a 1646 title page … In about 1658-59 William Garrett acquired the plates and sold them on to Roger Rea, both the elder and younger. They updated this plate with the addition of Boston, ‘Long Ile’ and other English nomenclature, and altered the imprint … The ‘Prospect’ was issued in 1662, and accompanied the British atlas until the death of one of the Reas in 1665, probably of the plague that was ravaging London at the time. This edition was largely destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. ‘The plates were then acquired by Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell, who in 1676 published the most often seen edition. Burden (1996-2007) no. 217; Leighly (1972) pl. 4; McLaughlin & Mayo (1995) no. 3; Shirley (2004) T.Spe 1j; Skelton (1970) no. 16; Tooley (1964) p. 113; Tooley (1973) pp. 302-3; Tooley (1977) pp. 4-9; Wheat (1957) pp. 36-7 & no. 39.