Speed

1650 · ref. LL4281 — George Humble 1650. PAGINATION: 12 155-402 395-799 1pp. 800-828ff. 829-921 49pp. ~Original dark brown calf boards faint remains of double gilt fillets and blind roll framing boards. Rebacked in near-matching calf with raised bands and gilt numerals to spine and early brown gilt spine label laid down. Minor loss to base spine with loss of replacement bottom headband. Cracking starting to top spine over rear hinge c. 7cm but hinges still holding firm. Wear to top and bottom board edges with discreet fairly early repairs to board corners. Top edges darkened other edges speckled red. Single splash mark to fore-edges. Large folio 35.5 x 29.5cm. Replacement laid paper endpapers with cracking just starting at gutters. Two older armorial bookplates laid down to inside front board: one of Julius Bertram of Sishes End Hertfordshire either Julius Bertram 1866-1944 Liberal politician or his father of the same name and one older bookplate with minor loss with boar passant. Owner's signature of Elizabeth Pryor in old hand to replacement blank front endpage. Trimmed remains of lettering in old hand to top dedication page. Title page from the 1627 edition ESTC S124203 bound in with imprint 'Imprinted at London: Anno Cum Privilegio 1627. Are to be sold by George Humble at the Whit horse in Popes-head Alley'. However this is the 1650 third edition ESTC S121978 not the 1627 second edition. T.p. substitution is indicated by the fact that pattern of minor worm damage to t.p. does not match that to frontis and dedication page. This and the slightly smaller size of the t.p. in comparison to other sheets as well as sigs pagination 49 rather than 47 unnumbered pp. to rear and presence of the 1629 frontis. port. engraving by Samuel Savery indicate that this is the 1650 Humble edn with the 1627 t.p. bound in other possible edns do not have matching pagination or signatures. We have included a printout of the 1650 t.p. from an online edition showing near-identical t.p. engraved by the notable Dutch cartographer and engraver Jodocus Hondius after a design by Speed. Some black smut marks to pp. 860-61 and 900-01 none more than c. 8cm obscuring text slightly. Slight dampstaining to bottom outer corner final 10ff. Very minor worm damage extending from rear of vol. to p. 725 two holes to margin with one pinprick hole only affecting text. Minor worm damage extending down from single hole in top edges mildly affecting pp. from title page to p.384. At no point does this amount to more than c. 4 pin-holes slightly affecting text near top page. Illustrated throughout with in-text illustrations decorated initials headpieces and tailpieces all the work of the engraver Christopher Switzer. John Speed 1551/2-1629 historian and cartographer. Speed produced his History of Great Britain as a continuation of its companion atlas volume The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine pagination continuous from companion vol. but this vol. is complete in itself. Both were the result of 'industrious research and reading' ODNB with the encouragement and assistance of the foremost antiquarians of the time including William Camden and Sir Robert Cotton. This product of early Stuart optimism and nation-building first published in 1611 and creating 'Great Britaine' for the 'most potent monarch Iames' the first king of both Scotland and England is in this 1650 edition republished just before the end of the civil war that was to see the Stuart monarchy expelled from Britain for a decade. Handsome edn in original boards. ~Robust packaging. Overseas orders trackable on request. Used books are exempt from USA tariffs. 3rd edn. Hardback. Hardback. Good. c. 1000pp. George Humble Hardcover