Africa: being an accurate description of the regions of Egypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid, The land of Negroes, Guinee, Æthiopia, and the Abyssines, With all the Adjacent Island, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, belonging thereunto. With the several Denominations of their Coasts, Harbors, Creeks, Rivers, Lakes, Cities, Towns, Castles, Villages. Their Customs, Modes, and Manners, Languages, Religions, and Inexhaustible Treasure; With their Governments and Policy, variety of Trade and Barter, And also of their Wonderful Plants, Beasts, Birds, and Serpents. . . By John Ogilby Esq; Master of His Majesties Revels in the Kingdom of Ireland
Africa: being an accurate description of the regions of Egypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid, The land of Negroes, Guinee, Æthiopia, and the Abyssines, With all the Adjacent Island, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, belonging thereunto. With the several Denominations of their Coasts, Harbors, Creeks, Rivers, Lakes, Cities, Towns, Castles, Villages. Their Customs, Modes, and Manners, Languages, Religions, and Inexhaustible Treasure; With their Governments and Policy, variety of Trade and Barter, And also of their Wonderful Plants, Beasts, Birds, and Serpents. Collected and Translated from most Authentick Authors, And Augmented with later Observations; Illustrated with Notes, and Adorn’s with peculiar Maps, and proper Sculptures, By John Ogilby Esq; Master of His Majesties Revels in the Kingdom of Ireland. London: Thomas Johnson for the Author, 1670. First edition.
Folio in 6s (16 3/16” x 10 3/8”, 410mm x 265mm): binder’s blank, a2(–a1) b2 c1 c3 c4 c2 B-Ttt6, binder’s blank[$3 signed; Aa3 as “Aa”]. 391 leaves, pp. [14] (title, blank, 3pp. dedication to Charles II, blank, 2pp. preface, 2pp. privilege, 2pp. catalogue of names, 2pp. preface (quire inverted)) 1-767 [1] (instructions to the binder). With 53 engravings: a folding map and a folding view, 14 double-page maps, 23 double-page views, 4 double-page plates and 10 single engraved plates (of which 1 is bound as frontispiece, and of which 4 have two plates to a page); and 9 letterpress tables; plus 46 engraved vignettes integral to the text.
Bound in XXc paneled speckled calf antique with blind roll borders and corner-ornaments. On the spine, five raised bands. Author and title gilt to red morocco in the second panel, date gilt to the tail. All edges of the text-block glazed black.
Scuffed at the peripheries. Preliminaries and end-matter soiled. Lacking the half-title (a1) and 18pp. of preliminaries (χ8 2χ1), and quire c bound out of order. Double-page views and maps particularly tanned, with some fold-breaks and peripheral splits and tears. The plate of Loanda (between pp. 552 and 553) trimmed at the fores. Worming to the lower margin through quire H (often with old or new repairs) and from quire Ppp (also repaired), essentially avoiding the text. An inksplotch to p. 614, with some ink-staining to the fore-edge generally. Ink marginalia to pp. 368–369: “Ludos/ Ludos/ Collibee” and “666” respectively. Pencil sketch (of a walrus?) to the fore-edge of p. 399.
John Ogilby (sometimes Ogelby or Ogilvy, 1600–1676) was a Scottish-born royalist — itself remarkable — who flourished in the years following the Restoration of the monarchy after the British Civil War. He was a translator and playwright, and planned the coronation of Charles II. His magnum opus may be the Britannia, which contains the first road survey of Britain, but his greatest contribution historically was the series of travel narratives, compiled and translated by Ogilby and illustrated, principally, by Wenceslaus Hollar.
Africa is the first of these — dedicated most exuberantly to Charles II — and the most dispassionate. British colonization was still some 130 years off (Capetown, 1800, being the first foothold); instead, Ogilby draws on Olfert Dapper for the Dutch (and Portuguese) accounts of the people, flora, fauna and landscape of Africa. Beginning with Egypt, Ogilby proceeds to Barbary (the north and northwest coasts), to “Biledulgerid” (ancient Numidia, south of the Atlas Mountains), “Negro-Land” (West Africa), “Nether-Aethiopia” (the southern part of the continent, from Greek Αἰθίοψ, aithiops, “burnt-visage”) and finally the islands, including Madagascar and the Canaries. All attention is essentially on the coastal regions; the interior of the continent remained the province of myth and mystery.
ESTC R22824.
Item #JLR0813
Price: $12,000