1553 appeared the earliest book produced in England chiefly devoted to the American discoveries, and this was Richard Eden’s Treatyse of the newe India, which he had translated from the Latin of the fifth book of Sebastian Munster’s Cosmographia, pp. 1099 to 1113. See Carter-Brown Cat. p. 171, and further in the chapter on the Cabots.
Munster was one of the most popular cosmographers of his day. He had begun his work in 1532 by supplying a map by Apianus to Gyrnæus’s Novus Orbis of that date, which was not very creditable, being much behind the times; and he made amends by trying to give the latest information in an issue of Ptolemy, which he edited in 1540, to which he supplied a woodcut map that did service in a variety of publications for nearly all the rest of the century. It was one of the earliest maps, in which interstices were left in the block for the insertion of type for the names, and in this way it was made to accompany both German and Latin texts. It was also used in Sylvanus’s Ptolemy, the names being in red. Kohl, Disc. of Maine, p. 296; Harvard Coll. Lib. Bull. i. 270.
Munster’s Cosmographia, to which he transferred this map, was first published in German, according to Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 258, quoting the Labanoff Catalogue, in 1541, and again in 1544, with a new map. After this there were two German (1545 and 1550) and one Latin (1550) edition, each published at Basle, and a French edition (1552), all of which are generally noted, besides Eden’s version of 1552 (owned by Mr. Brevoort); cf. Carter-Brown Catalogue, 1865, p. 27, and an earlier one (1543), cited in Poggendorff’s Biog.-lit. Handwörterbuch, ii. 234, which is not so generally recognized, if indeed it exists at all. The statement is, however, enough to indicate that Eden thus made a popular book the medium of his first presentation to the English public.
TITLE OF EDEN’S MUNSTER.
The cut is taken from the Carter-Brown Catalogue. The Colophon reads: “Thus endeth this fyfth boke of Sebastian Munster, of the lādes of Asia the greater, and of the newefounde landes, and Ilandes. 1553.”
1555. Richard Eden, who to his book-learning added the results of converse with sailors, next published his Decades of the Newe Worlde, or West India, derived in large part, as shown in Mr. Deane’s chapter, from the Latin of Peter Martyr. This made to the English public the first really collective presentation of the results of the maritime enterprise of that time. (H. Stevens, Bibl. Hist. 1870, no. 632; Field, Indian Bibliog. no. 484; Carter-Brown Catalogue, p. 184, with fac-simile of title.) Among the supplemental matters was a “Description of the two Viages made out of England into Guinea,” in 1553-54, which were the earliest English voyages ever printed. This 1555 edition, which fifty years ago was worth in good copies six guineas (Rich’s Catalogue, 1832, no. 30), will now bring about £25. The Editor has used the Harvard College and Mr. Charles Deane’s copies. There was sold in the Brinley sale, no. 40, the 1533 edition of Peter Martyr, which was the copy used by Eden in making this translation, and it is enriched with his little marginal maps and annotations. See Sabin’s Dictionary, i. 201, where it is said Bellero’s map, measuring 5 × 6½ inches, is found in some copies. The Lenox copy has a larger map, 10½ × 7 inches, with a similar title.
1559. “A perticular Description of suche partes of America as are by travaile founde out,” made the last chapter of a heavy folio, The Cosmographicalle Glasse, which appeared in London, the work of a young man, William Cunningham, twenty-eight years old, a doctor in physics and astronomy. See Carter-Brown Catalogue, p. 214, where a fac-simile of the author’s portrait as it appeared in the book is given.
1563. The whole and true discouerie of Terra Florida, as set forth in English, following Ribault’s narrative, was published in London on the 30th of May. The book is so scarce that the Lenox and Carter-Brown Libraries have been content with manuscript copies from the volume in the British Museum. This may possibly indicate that the destruction of the edition followed upon much reading and thumbing.