L'Histoire du Nouveau Monde ou Description des Indes Occidentales, Contenant dix-huict Liures, Par le Sieur Iean de Laet, d'Anuers; Enrichi de nouuelles Tables Geographiques & Figures des Animaux, Plantes & Fruicts
Leiden: Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir, 1640. First edition in French.
Folio in 4s (13 ½” x 8 5/8”, 342mm x 216mm): **-****4 A-Kkkk4 Llll6 [$3 signed]. 336 leaves, pp. [28] (title, blank, verse, list of map, 8pp. preface, 15pp. contents, list of in-text illustrations), 1-632, [12] (12pp. index). With 14 double-page engraved maps and many woodcut illustrations integral to text.
Bound in later calf (re-backed, with the original panels of the back-strip laid down). On the spine, six raised bands. Title gilt to sheep in the second panel. All edges of the text-block speckled brown.
Re-backed with the original panels laid down. Scratching and cracking to the backstrip and boards. Fore-corners strengthened. Mildly evenly tanned throughout, with sporadic light foxing. Wormhole in bottom gutter from the first free end-paper through M3 (p. 94). Obliterated XVIIIc armorial bookplate to the front paste-down, with the early ink ownership signature “D’Anglure” at the bottom right corner.
Johannes de Laet (1581–1649), was born in Antwerp to cloth merchant Hans de Laet. In 1584, upon the invasion of Antwerp by Spanish troops, his family fled to the Northern Netherlands and settled in Amsterdam. At the University of Leiden, he studied philosophy and theology, matriculating in 1597. His worldly interests led him to London in 1603, where he cleverly invested in Dutch land reclamation projection and overseas trade. His success in his field led him to become one of the founding directors of the Dutch West India Company– a position he held from 1620 until death.
De Laet first published his account of the New World as Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien… (Leiden, 1625). This French edition, probably translated by de Laet himself — each edition, from the 1633 Latin to this French, became more complete and accurate, making the French edition the most desirable (see Sabin) — is one of the most important seventeenth-century New World histories and texts concerning early knowledge of the Americas. The “Nova Anglia” map, showing the coast and inland areas from Nova Scotia to North Carolina, is the first printed map to mention the name Manhattan, here spelled “Manbattes.”
The Streeter catalogue notes that “it is also the earliest to use the Dutch names of Noordt Rivier and Zuyd Rivier, for the Hudson and Delaware Rivers respectively, as well as the Indian Massachusets, for the new English colony ... [the ‘Nova Francia’ map] is one of the foundation maps of Canada” (Streeter). It is “one of the most famous contemporary descriptions of the natural history of the New World. The work was highly praised a century later by Charlevoix, attesting to its accuracy [...] Winsor referred to Laet’s book as the standard seventeenth-century work on New Netherland” (ibid.). The fourteen double-page maps are the work of Hessel Gerritsz, a Dutch engraver who was appointed official cartographer of both Dutch India Companies (over Blaeu).
The signature of “D’Anglure” could be either the name that had been on the obliterated bookplate or, perhaps likelier, the name of a later owner. Could this be either Charles-François (1605–1669, Archbishop of Toulouse) or his brother Louis (1618–1697, Archbishop of Bordeaux) d’Anglure de Bourlément? The family was distinguished in the Southwest, and had connections to Rome and elsewhere in Europe.
Alden & Landis 640/111; Borba de Moraes I.384; cf. Burden 229-232; Cumming, Southeast 34; Phillips 1149; Sabin 38558; Streeter sale 37; Willems 382.
Item #SJF0005
Price: $24,000