FRENCH EDITIONS
From Amsterdam and under date July 19, 1668, a summary of the earlier Dutch issue with two paragraphs of introduction was sent to Paris, and was printed in a four-page pamphlet by Sébastien Marbre Cramoisy, the king's printer, whose name is so honorably connected with the Jesuit Relations—stories as remarkable as any offered in the "Isle of Pines" and of immeasurable value on the earliest years of recorded history in our New England. Even this summary, thus definitely dated, offers problems. The location of the island is given in general terms in the half-title as "below the equinoctial line," and in the text as in "xxviii or xxix degrees of Antartique latitude." Nowhere in the first London part is either location used, and in the second London part, which bears nearly the same date as the Cramoisy summary—July 22—twenty degrees of latitude is given. The writer of the summary thus allowed himself some freedom.
A second French edition, without imprint, contains eleven pages and is a translation of the first London part, paraphrased in sentences, but on the whole a close rendering of the English text There never was a title-page to this issue—the first page having the signature-mark A—yet with eleven pages only, it would seem fit that a title-page should round out the twelve for the convenience of printing.
ITALIAN EDITION
The Italian issue, made by Giacomo Didini, in Bologna and Venice, is a literal translation of Cramoisy's publication, and bears the same date, at Amsterdam, July 19, 1668. The original probably came from Paris, though it is possible that some Dutch merchant in Amsterdam sent a circular letter on the discovered Isle to his correspondents in Paris and Venice. It is unsafe to conjecture in such matters, for an Amsterdam issue may yet be found which will give, word for word, the French and Italian versions. Our ignorance on the press of the continent of those times, and especially the want of files of "corantos," or news sheets, close a wide field of research to the American inquirer. The catalogue of the British Museum gives 1669 as the probable year of issue. I see no good reason for rejecting 1668 as the more probable year. If the tract could go from London to Cambridge, in New England, in three months, it could pass from Amsterdam to Italy, by land or by sea, in an equal time.
GERMAN EDITIONS
From Holland the relation also penetrated the German states, finding ready welcome and arousing eager curiosity. Hippe regards the tract issued by Wilhelm Serlin, at Frankfort on the Main, as the first of the German publications, and, being translated from the Dutch, he shows that the translator used both the Amsterdam and the Rotterdam publications.{1} The Hamburg version claimed to be derived from the English original, but it followed closely the Serlin translation from the Dutch with modifications which might have been drawn from the London tract. An edition not mentioned by Hippe or identified by any bibliographer is in the John Carter Brown Library, and opens with the statement that it is translated from the English and not from the Dutch. It closely follows the text of the London first part. Very likely it is the edition found at Copenhagen, if the similarity of titles offers an indication of the contents. South Germany obtained its information from France, and while neither of the two issues avowedly translated from the French gives the place of publication, the fact that one is in Munich and the other in Strassburg offers some reason to conjecture that they came from the presses of those cities. The Munich issue is for the most part a summary of what was in the first London issue, and, if translated directly from a French version, must have been from one not now located, for it is different from those in the list in this volume. Of the Strassburg text, Hippe states that it follows the Rotterdam pamphlet Finally, at Breslau is what calls itself a complete publication of the combined parts from a copy obtained from London, but it is more probably based upon the Dutch translations printed in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with additions drawn from the English.{2}