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Peter HeylynCosmographie in Four Books
An important Restoration-era cosmography presenting the known world through geography and history, including a fascinating early map of North America.
- Edition
- London · Four large maps · Contemporary calf
- Format
- Folio · Four parts · Double-column text
- Availability
- Price on request
Bibliographical details
Contemporary full calf with wear. Engraved and typographical title pages. Four large maps mounted on modern board, with some losses; browning and spotting throughout.
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Heylyn’s Cosmographie combined chorography and history to organise the entire known world. Its account of the Americas is especially revealing: geography, colonial ambition and religious interpretation coexist on the same page.
The North American map preserves a world still being negotiated, in which familiar names occupy surprising positions and political claims often precede secure geographical knowledge.
Published in Restoration England, the volume is both a work of reference and a statement about order, empire and England’s place within a rapidly changing global system.
Further photographs and a complete condition report are available on request.