Robert Morden was by 1701 a successful publisher on the London scene. His most notable cartographic contribution to date was arguably the county maps for Gibson’s edition of Camden’s ‘Britannia’ in 1695. A smaller more manageable atlas seemed to be called for and in 1701 he teamed up with Thomas Cockeril and Ralph Smith to produce ‘The New Description and State of England’. Morden contributed 54 small maps known as miniature Morden’s.

Following the death of Robert Morden in August 1703 there would have been a distribution of shareholding. Unfortunately, no record survives of these transactions. We can see from the new list of publishers on the title page that Thomas Cockerill also disposed of his shares, Ralph Smith retained his ownership and may well have expanded it. This edition was first advertised in the ‘Term Catalogues’ for Hilary in 1703/4 indicating a publication early in the year. Smith alone advertised the work in the ‘Daily Courant’ 9 March 1703/4. The title is entirely reset including now a reference to Robert Morden. The body of text however is a reissue of left-over sheets from the 1701 printing complete with pagination errors. In this example however, pp. 129-136 and 113-128 are bound in order of pagination which although the text is not disrupted places the counties out of alphabetical order. Hodson is incorrect in stating there are no alterations apart from the title page. The ‘List’ of notable people bound at the end is entirely renewed and expanded by a further fifty-one pages. Provenance: signature of ‘Robe: Morell’? on the title page; private English collection. References: Chubb (1927) 125; ESTC T225736; Hodson (1984-97) 125; Shirley (2004) T.Mord 4b.