Geography Rectified: or, a description of the world, In all its Kingdoms, Provinces, Countries, Islands, Cities, Towns, Seas, Rivers, Bayes, Capes, Ports; Their Ancient and Present Names, Inhabitants, Situations, Histories, Customs, Governments, &c. As also their Commodities, Coins, Weights, and Measures, Compared with those at London. Illustrated with Seventy six maps. The Second Edition, Enlarged with above Thirty Sheets more in the Description, and about Twenty New Maps. The whole Work performed according to the more Accurate Observations and Discoveries of Modern Authors

Morden, Robert

Published by Robert Morden and Thomas Cockerill, London, 1688

About this Item

Second edition. London: Robert Morden and Thomas Cockerill, 1688. Pot quarto (7 7/8" x 6 1/8", 201mm x 155mm). [Full collation available.] With 78 engraved maps integral with the text: a world map and 77 maps (76 maps in total called for in the catalogue, plus Armenia (p. 342) and Barbados ([chi]1r, between Gggg1-2 (pp. 544-545)). Bound in contemporary spotted calf with a double blind fillet border (re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down). On the spine, four raised bands. All edges of the text-block marbled. Re-backed (bluntly) with the original back-strip laid down. Head, tail and fore-corners perished, with some scuffing and chipping. Offsetting from the turn-ins. Damp-stain to the upper edge of the text-block throughout (sometimes disappearing), largely avoiding the text; and to the lower edge through S4. A handful of quires (e.g., X, CC, Ee, Gg, Kk, Kkkk) tanned. Robert Morden (ca. 1650-1703) was the rare British cartographic counterweight to the XVIIc Dutch-Flemish dominance of the map trade. A protégé of Joseph Moxon (hydrographer to Charles II), Morden seeks in his Geography Rectified (first edition 1680, with 63 maps) to "rectifie and compleat the Ataxie of Geography" (A3v). Morden boasts of his familiarity with the Greek origins of the now-common word (geôgraphia: lit. "writing about the earth") by using another: ataxia: "disorder." Indeed, the work contains sections on the use of latitude and longitude, as well as regularizing and correlating weights and measures, since each nation had its own unit(s) of measurement. The small maps -- perhaps engraved by Herman Moll -- include a double-hemisphere world map (Shirley 503 and pl. 361) and a map of America (Burden's third state) as well as fifteen maps of the Americas from the southern tip of Chile up to what was then known of the Pacific Northwest, and east to New York, Eastern Canada, Greenland and Iceland. Burden, Mapping of America 519-524; ESTC R39765; Sabin 50535; Shirley, British Museum T.MORD-2c; Shirley, World 503.

Seller Inventory # JLR0810

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Geography Rectified: or, a description of the world, In all its Kingdoms, Provinces, Countries, Islands, Cities, Towns, Seas, Rivers, Bayes, Capes, Ports; Their Ancient and Present Names, Inhabitants, Situations, Histories, Customs, Governments, &c. As also their Commodities, Coins, Weights, and Measures, Compared with those at London. Illustrated with Seventy six maps. The Second Edition, Enlarged with above Thirty Sheets more in the Description, and about Twenty New Maps. The whole Work ...
• Publisher: Robert Morden and Thomas Cockerill, London
• Publication Date: 1688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: Second.
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Maps & Atlases
  • Americana