Beschreibung:

SMITH, Captain JOHN, Governor of Virginia . Advertisements for the unexperienced Planters of New-England, or any where. Or, The Path-way to experience to erect a Plantation. London: by Iohn Haviland for Robert Milbourne 1631. Small 4to, red Jansenist morocco, g.e., by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, lower and fore-margins closely cropped, affecting catchwords and signatures of 9 leaves (grazing 3 last lines), 3 words of the poem on A3v, and a few side-notes, tiny repair on catchword of E1, washed, a few remaining stains, stain on F1r severely washed, with loss to a word of the headline and a few letters of the text, the map backed with Japanese tissue . FIRST EDITION, WITH THE FOLDING ENGRAVED MAP OF "NEW ENGLAND" (ie., Massachusetts Bay), sheet: 309 x 384mm. (12 3/16 x 15 1/16in.) , in the eighth state with the arms of the Council of New England at center, woodcut arms on verso of title, 2 woodcut arms on first page of text, woodcut headpieces and initials. "This is Smith's last production, and from a literary point of view, his best....The sixth book of [his] Generall Historie of Virginia relates to New England....In the Advertisements he brings the history of that plantation down to 1630. Two chapters (XI and XII) are devoted to the settlement of Salem and Charleston (Charlestown), and give a sad account of the condition of the colony for months after the Winthrop emigration" Church. The map is the first accurate depiction of the Massachusetts coast, and has been called the "foundation map of New England cartography" (Streeter sale 610). It first appeared in Smith's Description of New England in 1616, and was used in several of his works, with continual modifications to the plate: nine states have been recorded. "The seventh state...is the one which best fits the book... Earlier and later states may also have been issued with the book, as the sixth state...or the eighth state"--Sabin 82815; Church 419; STC 22787; Alden 631/101. Complete copies are rare.