Travel in Jamaica: Buccaneers at the National Library in Downtown Kingston, in the Year 2012
- by Thibault Ehrengardt
Richard Blome's Description of Jamaica.
PART II : Buccaneers’ Paradise.
BOOK 1: Richard Blome, A Description of the Island of Jamaica, With the Other Isles and Territories in America, to Which the English are Related (London, 1678).
The National Library of Jamaica (NLJ) shelters some old books linked to the history of the island. Last month, I described the copy of Thomas Gage’s travel that played a key role in the English capturing Jamaica in 1655. The first years of the island under English dominion were rough times. Despite Oliver Cromwell’s privileges granted to the new settlers (including the English nationality), few wanted to migrate to this remote and unknown island, said to be hostile and unhealthy. By 1670, Jamaica became an official possession of the restored Crown and the book A Description of the Island of Jamaica... by Richard Blome was used as a tool of propaganda to help populating the colony. It was, as the NLJ states, published “at the request of Charles II, King of England.” The staff of the library handed me a disappointing in-12 volume, rebound in modern clothe. The inside, though, is very bright and complete of all maps, except... the one of Jamaica which, Lord forgives, has been carefully removed. A note of the library sends the desperate reader to the “map collection” with a barbarous reference (727 Fa 1671). This map was deeply inspired by its historical predecessor of 1671, John Ogilby’s, “the prototype of most of the first maps of Jamaica” says the NLJ. Twenty-seven pages only are dedicated to Jamaica. The rest focuses on “the other Isles and Territories in America, to which the English are Related”. The “Island of Barbadoes” is here described. So are Virginia or New-York. The work is bound with The Present State of Algiers (1678).
The idea was to attract new settlers to the young colony – it’d better be a good book. Blome describes a paradise regained, with fertile soils, a rich and generous nature giving gorgeous fruits. A heavenly haven... Enhanced in such a way, the island could not fail to rapidly prosper. To be honest, it did. Thanks to her natural ressources, indeed – but also thanks to the “ressources” stolen by the buccanners from the Spaniards. In the 1670’s, the island became the turf of the most feared men of their time, the dreadful buccaneers, who almost ruined the Spanish empire in America while turning Port Royal into “the most wicked city on Earth”... and one of the richest.
ALDE, Apr. 8: GUEVARA (ANTONIO DE). Histoire de Marc-Aurèle, Empereur Romain, vray miroir et horloge des Princes. Paris, Pierre et Galliot du Pré, frères, 1565. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: HEURES DE LA VIERGE. Horæ in laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ ad usum Romanum. Paris, Charles L'Angelier, 1556. €4,000 to €5,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: MONTAIGNE (MICHEL DE). Les Essais. Édition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l'autheur… Paris, Abel L'Angelier, 1595. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [ROJAS (FERNANDO DE)]. Celestina, tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea, tradotta de lingua castigliana in italiano idioma… Venise, 1531. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CAMÕES (LUÍS DE). Os Lusiadas. Lisbonne, Pedro Crasbeeck, 1613. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Bruxelles, Roger Velpius & Huberto Antonio, 1611. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: LA FONTAINE (JEAN DE). Fables choisies, mises en vers. Paris, Denys Thierry et Claude Barbin, 1678-1694. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Madrid, Joaquin Ibarra, 1780. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: DIDEROT (DENIS) ET JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris, 1751-1765. €15,000 to €20,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). Les Laboureurs. Poème tiré de Jocelyn… Lyon, J. A. Henry, 1883. €8,000 to €10,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. Livre de prières tissé d'après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Lyon, [A. Roux], 1886. €5,000 to €6,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts & Objects from Three Important Collections Open for Bidding 2-17 April
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun]. Le Roman de la Rose, [Geneva or Lyons, c.1481], first printed edition of the most important medieval French vernacular poem. £200,000 to £300,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Castiglione. Il libro del cortegiano. [Venice], April 1528, first edition, in a magnificent binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Jacobus de Cessolis. Schachzabelbuch, Strasbourg, 1483, von der Lasa copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: World Championship, 1972. A collection of 84 press photographs of the famed match between Spassky and Fischer. £2,000 to £3,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Ben Franklin. Autograph letter signed, to Lord Shelburne, British Prime Minister, during peace negotiations, November 1782. £15,000 to £20,000.
