Description
TITLE TRANSLATION: Wonderful, but sincere explanation, of the occasion and customs of the savages in Virginia….
RARE: First German edition of Theodore de Bry’s Part I (Virginia) of his Grands Voyages which covered the fledgling Americas. This is the RARE First German edition with numbered copper plates having text below, related to the Indians of North Carolina. Only one other complete German first edition of Part I of the Grands Voyages has appeared on the American market for at least two decades, and it quickly disappeared.
“This First Edition in German [of Part I] is so rare that Camus says he had never seen it” (Church, p.409 quoting Camus Memoire, p.17).
“Nothing is more rare than the first editions of these four parts [Parts I. -IV. in German], Bibliotheca Grenvilliana, I: 89” (Church, p. 429).
In another statement of its rarity, “I refer Hariot’s Virginia Part I, Grands voyages, of which only three copies are known” (Crawford, p. iii)..
No transactions n are listed in Rare Book Hub. None is on ABE Books except one of ours.
BACKGROUND: The story in this book takes place beginning in 1585 on Roanoke Island in what is now Dade County, North Carolina. Queen Elizabeth (the First) had granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter to colonize the part of America north of the Spanish claim for Florida. This new land was named “Virginia” in honor of the virgin queen. Raleigh appointed Ralph Lane as governor. Thomas Hariot was the documentarian and John White the artist and surveyor (and cartographer). De Bry’s book is based primarily on their work.
PUBLICATION DETAILS: The text and plates of the present 1590 first edition of the German Part I agree with Church 176.The publication date near the bottom of the title page is 1590, and the colophon reads Gedruckt zu Franckfort am Mayn bey Johann Wechel in verlegung Theodori de Bry. M D XC. Dedicated to Christiano Hertzogen of Saxony. The table of plates in Part I lists 23 plates. The map of Virginia is listed as Plate I but is not numbered. Most of the numbered plates are based on John White’s watercolors. There is an un-numbered full-page engraving of Adam and Eve, State 1 [of 3 with longitudinal shading on the serpent’s body, drawn by Jodocus van Winghe and engraved by Theodore de Bry. De Bry chose the text by Thomas Hariot from his Briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, first published in 1588. The final portion of de Bry’s book is devoted to scantily clad Picts of Grear Britain with skin coloring and tattoos. The Picts lived in what is now Scotland and were absorbed by the local population by the Tenth Century CE. Jodocus van Winghe was the intermediate artist who prepared drawings of the plates for the principal engraver, Theodore de Bry.
Folio (10 x14 inches, 325 x 240 mm), full Seventeenth Century calf, blind paneled with ornate gilt corners and central gilt feature to both boards. Spine recently repacked with raised bands, blind ruled with central gilt embossed decoration to compartments, with painted foredges. The manuscript sheet laid down inside the left board is dated 1594. It is impossible to interpret the text. There is an unidentified (perhaps Eighteenth Century) watercolor coat of arms laid below the text. As called for, the German text on the title page is pasted upon the Latin text. This obviates the need to engrave a second frame for the German title page.
MAP OF VIRGINIA: Americae Pars, Nunc Virginia dicta, primum ab Anglis inventa sumtibus Dn. Walteri Raleigh Equestris ordinis Viri Anno Dni. M.D LXXXV. The map of Virginia by John White is Burden 76, the RARE THIRD STATE .Philip Burden identifies three “states” of the map, all pertaining to the beginning “C” in the title of the Indian village “Chesepiooc” (Chesapeake), which is located on a river left of the Chesapeake Bay. However, Burden indicates those three states bear no relation to the editions of the book. So, it is impossible to attribute the map to a particular edition of de Bry’s book about Virginia once it is removed from the book, or if it had been replaced during restoration of the now 434 year-old book. Those three states are:
State 1. Ehesepiooc.
State 2. The letter “C” engraved over the “E”; both still visible.
State 3. The error was hammered out, burnished, and replaced by “C”. However, the “C” over “E” was not completely hammered out and burnished before the new letter “C” was added. State 3 has been observed on one other map and compared to a State 2 to confirm the difference. The buyer will be provided the background material.
MAP TRANSLATION: Part of America, now called Virginia, first discovered by the English, taken up by Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, in 1585 A.D….
PREVIEW: For a preview and analysis of Part I, see Vavra, below.
CONDITION: Complete with all pages and engravings. Covers scratched. Light stain to plate16. The map has two minor margin repairs and a printer’s crease on the left side. The margin of the engraved title-page has minor repairs. Plate 22 was replaced with another copy. The lower left of the text for Pict plate 2 has been replaced, including some facsimile. Minor professional repairs to plates 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 23, Pict 1, and Pict 5. Overall in in good condition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Burden, Philip D. The Mapping of North America. Rickmansworth: Raleigh Publications, 1996.
Church, Elihu Dwight. Catalogue of Books Relating to the discovery of North and South America. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1907.
Crawford Library, Bibliotheca Lindesiana : Collations and Notes, no. 3 : Grands et petits voyages of de Bry B. Author: James Ludovic Lindsay, Earl of Crawford. Published by Bernard Quaritch, Piccadilly, 1884.
Vavra, Luke A. Exploration and Colonization of the New World 1492-1619: An Analysis of the German Editions [of] Theodore de Bry’s Part I (Virginia) 1590 and Part IV (Caribbean) 1594 of the Grands Voyages. Self- published, 2023. [Available on this site.]
BRY3PART I
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