the first work to describe in print Australia, and California, Terra del Fuego, and other territories in the New World. Title-page and maps contemporary hand-coloured.

Cosmographie in Four Books Contayning the Chorographie & Historie of the whole World and all Provinces Seas and Isles Thereof. With an accurate and approved index of all the kingdoms, provinces, countries, inhabitants, people, cities, mountains, rivers, seas, islands, forts, bays, capes, forests,&c. of any remarque in the whole world: much wanted and desired in the former, and now annexed to this last impression, revised and coreected by the author himself immediately before his death.

Engraved general title page, typographical title page. Rebound in half Leather, Folio. Five parts in one volume, each describing a continent. It is the first work to describe in print Australia, California, Terra del Fuego, and other territories in the New World, and includes descriptions of the Arctic, Antarctica, and the North West Passage. When California was an Island – “Huge and very popular” (Milton). In the 1663 map of the Americas, “America Nova Descriptio” (sic), which is one of the earliest maps of the Americas, he names many English settlements along the east coast and depicts California as an island. Part II of the fourth book is devoted entirely to the “chorography and history of America, and of all her kingdoms, provinces, seas, and islands.” With four geographical maps of the Continents: America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, each with an imprint dated 1666. The title page and the four folding maps are contemporary hand-coloured. Heylyn (1599-1662), a staunch royalist and chaplain to the king, was also a professor of geography. In 1621, he wrote “Microcosmus”, which he then expanded into the four books of the “Cosmographie”. “Published in 1652, this work is an enormous and hugely popular expansion of his earlier ‘Microcosmos’ in a folio volume of nearly a thousand pages, and has been so highly regarded that the Council of State has seen fit to obtain a copy for their personal instruction” (Anthony Milton for DNB). First published by Henry Seile in 1652, in the first edition, the maps were drawn by William Trevethen, and the map of America was a near exact copy of Goos’s 1626/27, as it appeared in Speed’s atlas. In this edition, the maps have been replaced by Heylin’s widow for editions which she published after her death and for which she does not appear to have inherited the plates. The maps of Europe and Africa are attributed to Philip Chetwind and dated 1666, while Asia is attributed to John Goddard and dated 1663. Heylyn (1600-1662) was a lecturer in historical geography and a clergyman, appointed personal chaplain to King Charles I.

The Cosmographie was the most important English geography of its time, an expansion of the author’s Microcosmus, now grown to nearly a thousand pages, with a suite of four maps of the continents, dated 1652.

Literature: ESTC R14988; Sabin, 31655; Wing H1696; burden 379.