MAPPEMONDE DE GERARD MERCATOR Duisbourg. 1569.
After the death of Jodocus Hondius, Feb. 16, 1611, Heinrich Hondius (b. 1580; d. 1644) and Johannes Jannsonius (d. 1666) completed the Atlas; and what is known as the fourth edition (1613) contains portraits of Mercator and the elder Hondius. In this there were ten American maps, and for several editions subsequently there were 105 of Mercator’s maps and 51 of Hondius’. Such seemingly was the make-up of the seventh edition in 1619 (though called fourth on the title); but there is much arbitrary mingling of the maps observable in many copies of these early editions.
The same Latin text and its translations appeared in the several editions down to 1630, when what is called sometimes the eleventh edition appeared with 163 maps (105 by Mercator, 58 by Hondius); but I have noted copies with 184 maps, of which ten are American, and a copy dated 1632, with 178 maps. Raemdonck does not venture to enumerate all the Latin editions of Hondius and Jannsonius; but he mentions those of 1612, 1613, 1616, 1623, 1627, 1628, 1630, 1631.
In 1633 a marked change was made in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. There was a new Latin text, and it was now called the Atlas novus, and made two volumes, containing 238 newly engraved maps (only 87 of Mercator’s remaining, while Hondius added 151, including 10 new maps of America). The French text was issued the same year, but it added details not in the Latin, and in the general description of America is quite different.[737] The German text also appeared in 1633; but it had—at least in the copy we have noted—only 160 maps, and of these 6 were American. The Dutch text is dated usually in 1634.
In 1635 the English text appeared with the following title: Historia Mundi; or, Mercator’s Atlas.... Lately rectified in divers places, and also beautified and enlarged with new mappes and tables by the studious industry of Iudocus Hondy. Englished by W. S., London;[738] and of this there was a second edition in 1637. The only map showing New France is a general one of America, which is no improvement upon that of the 1613 edition.
The English market was also supplied with another English version, published much more sumptuously, in two large folios, at Amsterdam in 1636, with the title, Atlas; or, a Geographical Description of the Regions ... of the World, represented by New and Exact Maps. Translated by Henry Hexham. Printed at Amsterdam by Henry Hondius and John Johnson.[739] The American maps are in the second volume, where the map of the two Americas is much like the world-map in vol. i. There is no part of New France shown in the special maps, except in that of “Nova Anglia, Novum Belgium, et Virginia,” where lying west of the Lac des Iroquois (Ontario) is a single and larger “Grand lac.”
A still further enlargement of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas novus took place in 1638, when it appeared in three imperial folio volumes, with 318 maps, 17 of which are special maps of America.[740] It was now more commonly known as Jannson’s Atlas,—this publisher being a son-in-law of Jodocus Hondius,—and it went on increasing till it grew to eight volumes, to which were added a volume “Orbis Maritimus” (1657), a second on the ancient world, a celestial atlas for a third, and an “Atlas Contractus,” or résumé, for the fourth; making twelve in all.[741]