BLOME, Richard (1635-1705)
A Description of the Island of Jamaica; with the Other Isles and Territories in America, to which the English are Related
London: T. Milbourne, 1672. 12mo. , 192pp. Three engraved folding maps. (Small neatly closed tear to largest map).
Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked, spine gilt, leather label.
Rare early work on Jamaica and the other American and British Caribbean colonies, published by British mapmaker and bookseller Richard Blome.
Blome added to the sparse knowledge of the times, fully describing the products, resources, and natives of British America. To do this he relied heavily on the notes of then Governor of Jamaica Thomas Lynch and the summaries of explorations described in Lederer's Discoveries (1672). Lederer's is a first-hand account of the explorations through Virginia, the Carolinas, and other American possessions, considered the first scientific report on those regions. The three rare folding maps are "A New & Exact Mapp of y. Isle of Jamaica" engraved by Wenceslas Hollar, who had worked on Blome's great atlas of 1670; "A Generall Mapp of Carolina, Describing Its Sea, Coast and Rivers," derived from the famous Horne map of 1666; and "A Draught of the Sea Coast and Rivers, of Virginia, Maryland, and New England," with an inset of Newfoundland. Three issues are indicated by ESTC, each with minor variations in the imprint; fewer than ten copes located in ESTC.
ESTC R7437; Wing B3208B; Sabin 5966; Cox II, 206; Cumming 69; Baer, Maryland 71.