Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - November - 2011 Issue

Maps, Atlases, and Related Material from Daniel Crouch Rare Books

Catalogue II from Daniel Crouch Rare Books.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books recently published their spectacular Catalogue II. The firm describes itself as “a specialist dealer in antique atlases, maps, plans, sea charts, globes, and voyages dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.” Though only in their second year as an independent bookseller, partners Daniel Crouch and Nick Trimming have gathered an outstanding selection of early maps, atlases, and related material. Furthermore, they have spared nothing in presenting, describing, and illustrating the material being offered. This is a 200-plus page catalogue devoted to describing just 50 items – quite thoroughly. This is important, valuable, and highly collectible material, herein given the level of presentation such works deserve. Here are a few of the very special cartographic items you will find.

We start with an item that is but a fragment of what it once was, quite literally. It is a one-eighth section from a very early portolan chart. Portolans were charts used by seafarers to guide their travels, particularly along the coasts. This fragment dates to well before the advent of printing. By comparing it to two other known similar charts, Crouch has been able to determine that this was most likely the work of Catalan mapmaker Guillem Soler, probably produced no later than 1385, possibly before 1380. Only two charts by Soler, with those dates, are known, and Crouch believes it likely that this chart predated the others. Since only this unsigned fragment remains, they cannot be certain. This section survived only because it was used to bind a later book. The fragment displays the western Mediterranean, with part of the southern Spanish and Portuguese coast and opposite northern African coast. This manuscript chart was not heavily decorated with flourishes as most often seen with older charts, indicating this one was put to practical use at sea. The more heavily decorated versions usually stayed on land, and as such, were more likely to have survived. Soler's charts were focused on the Mediterranean, with adjacent areas of the Atlantic and Black Sea at the edges. This was 1385, and it would still be almost a century before the early pre-Columbian Portuguese navigators would begin to sail slightly outside of these lines, to the west coast of Africa and the Canary Islands. Item 1. Priced at £100,000 (British pounds, or approximately $160,386 U.S. dollars).

The first map to give the New World its current name – America – was published by the German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller in 1507. While other theories for the origin of the name “America” exist, most believe it was in honor of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. That would seem the likely explanation for Waldseemuller adopting the name. Item 5 is a copy of Waldseemuller's great atlas from a few years later, 1513 - Geographia. It contains 47 maps. The first volume contained 27 ptolemaic maps taken from an earlier atlas. The world of Ptolemy essentially was limited to those lands surrounding the Mediterranean and north of the Indian Ocean. However, Waldseemuller has added 20 new maps, and these display some of the earliest learnings from the Age of Discovery. What is most significant is that this was the first atlas to include a map devoted entirely to America. While a long way from accurate by current standards, Waldseemuller's map, displaying portions of both North and South America, has numerous shapes and features clearly identifiable. Cuba may be many times its actual size, but is easy to recognize, as is Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. £600,000 (US $954,326).

It would be nice to own a copy of the first map to use the name “America,” but unless another is discovered, this is not going to happen. The Waldseemuller 1507 map is known in only one copy, owned by the Library of Congress. Item 6 is the earliest obtainable map to contain the name “America.” It is not the Waldseemuller 1513 map (above). By that time, he had reverted to calling the New World “Terra Incognita.” Why is uncertain, though a likely explanation is by then, he realized the true discoverer of the land was Columbus, not Vespucci, and felt the honor misplaced. However, the name was beginning to stick anyway, and when Peter Apian published his map Tipus Orbis Universalis in 1520, he labeled the new continent “America.” Apian's America is really what we know today as South America. Apian's North America is but a narrow, though long, island. However, what is notably different from Waldseemuller is Apian showed a western coast to the Americas, with an ocean on the other side. Waldseemuller's map cut off before the other side, revealing an uncertainty as to whether this New World was in fact a part of Asia. Incidentally, Apian was something of a polymath, being not only a skilled cartographer, but better known in his time as a mathematician and astronomer. £50,000 (US $79,548).

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    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
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    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
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  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
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    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
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    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.

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