Western Hemisphere/ California as Island.  SPEED, J. [London, 1626/ 1631] America with those known parts in that unknowne world both people and manner of buildings . . .  15 3/8 x 20 ¼ inches. With a strong, dark printing impression; excellent condition.                                                                 

This is the finest example we’ve seen of Speed’s beautiful and influential map of the Americas.  Due to its frequent re-printings, the plate for this map degraded significantly over the many decades it was published, resulting in most examples that come on the market having weak impressions.  This first edition (in the second state) is thus notable for its rich, dark impression.

Speed’s map was one of the maps most responsible for propagating that most enduring of cartographic fallacies—the depiction of California as an island.  Moreover, it was the definitive English map of the Americas at the outset of the English colonial enterprise in North America.  It is among the first maps to include place names associated with early English settlements, such as Plymouth, Jamestown (“Iames Citi”), "C. Codd," and Virginia.

The map is a splendid engraving in the Dutch style with border vignettes showing the Indians of America and various town plans and ports. It was in fact the work of the Dutchman, Abraham Goos, whose son Pieter would later publish one of the most beautiful sea atlases ever produced in The Netherlands.  English mapmakers of the period often relied on the superior skills of Dutch engravers, most of whom had fled religious persecution in Holland, then under Spanish domination.

John Speed was the preeminent English map publisher of the seventeenth century; his first works were county maps published in 1611.  His first general atlas was A Prospect of the World, in which this hemisphere map first appeared in 1627.  Speed's maps profited from the technical expertise he acquired from Saxton and Norden, who brought triangulation to British surveying early in the century. 

McLaughlin, The Mapping of California as an Island, No. 3, State 2; Tooley, Mapping of America, p. 302; Burden 217, State 2; Leighly, California as an Island, #6, pl. IV.

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