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DRAKE, Sir Francis. (1540-1596) The World Encompassed. Being his next voyage to that to Nombre de Dios formerly imprinted; Carefully collected out of the notes of Master Francis Fletcher Preacher in this employment, and diuers others his followers in the same. London: [G. Miller] for Nicholas Bourne, 1628. 4to (201 x 150 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Drake with a globe and navigation instruments by Robert Vaughn, rare folding engraved double-hemisphere world map A New and accurate Mappe of the World, drawne according to the best and latest discoveries that have been made (180 x 265 mm) also by Vaughan . Full modern crushed brown morocco gilt, edges gilt. Condition: expert restoration at tips of upper corners to title and first 30 pages, unobtrusive small repair to title gutter, else a handsome copy with an excellent, dark impression of the very rare map. Acquisition: William Reese Company (1998), $82,500. one of the great rarities of travel literature--the first account of drake's momentous circumnavation one of the great feats of the elizabethan age, the only complete copy with the map at auction in nearly 50 years Drake sailed from Plymouth in the Golden Hind on 15 November 1577 and returned to the same in September 26, 1580, "very richly fraught with gold, silver, pearls and precious stones" (Stow, Annales , p. 807). In the intervening three years he had sailed all around the world, discovering the upper California coast (named "New Albion") and on April 4, 1581,Queen Elizabeth knighted Drake, while visiting his ship the Golden Hind. Richly deserved, as economist J. M. Keynes states that England's foreign debt was paid off from the Queen's share of the proceeds. Both the book and map are true rarities when considered separately; when correct and together as issued as found here, the result is a superlative rarity. A single copy of the 1628 edition, lacking the map was sold at auction in 1980. The last complete copy of the first edition with the map present was the Boies Penrose copy in 1971 (the portrait supplied in reverse). Neither of the Streeter sales held a copy, nor did it appear in any of the major Americana or Travel sales of the last 50 years; even such an ecompassing collection as Maccesfield, where one might reasonably have expected a copy to have rested undisturbed, did not contain an example The map (based at least in part on the 1627 world map in John Speed's Prospect) features engraved portraits of the explorers Sir Francis Drake, Ferdinand Magellan, amd Thomas Cavendish. It shows California as an island, and Antarctica is a huge continent, stretching across nearly a third of the Globe. The map names such North American localities as Hudson's Bay, Virginia, Florida, New France and New England. This present copy of the text has four lines of Latin verse beneath the frontispiece portrait, differing from those copies in which the lines are in English, but no priority has yet been established. A second edition was published in 1635, and another in 1652. It is those editions that infrequently appear in the auction rooms, practically always defective. STC 7161; Sabin 20853; Church 413. Shirley 326; Wagner Northwest Coast 304. (for map). Condition reportThere is some loss at the upper right of I3 and p.61 has a repaired tear at the lower margin measuring approximately 1 cm.
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