Smith, John | The General History of Virginia... 1624

Smith, John

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours from their first beginning Ano: 1584 to this present 1624. With the Proceedings of Those Several Colonies and the Accidents that befell them in all their Journyes and Discoveries. Also the Maps and Descriptions of all those Countryes, their Commodities, people, Government, Customes, and Religion yet knowne. Divided into Sixe Bookes. London: Printed by J. Dawson and J. Havilland for Michael Sparkes, 1624.

Small folio (292 x 181 mm). Engraved title (Burden’s 1^st state), 4 engraved maps, comprising ‘Virginia’ (10^th state), ‘Ould Virginia’ (Burden’s 4^th state), ‘Bermuda’ (Sabin’s 3^rd state), ‘New England’ (Sabin-Church-Burden’s 9^th state, thus likely inserted from another copy), early manuscript annotations and manicules; The title lightly soiled and toned with some nicks and minor paper repairs at margins, the contents with occasional light soiling, some minor nicks at tears at the edges of a few leaves, a 19^th century manuscript note on the added blank leaf after p. 96 relating to the called-for irregularities in pagination, a closed tear in leaf A4, marginal paper repairs to a few leaves (R1, Bb1, Bb2), leaf Dd2 remargined at gutter, the maps generally clean, a few creases, three maps remargined, and with a few expert paper repairs along edges, a complete copy with no losses to the printing. Nineteenth-century polished tan calf, gilt ruled border, edges, and turn-ins, spine with six compartments double-ruled in gilt, gilt armorial supralibros of the Musgrave family to boards, all edges gilt, the binding by “Lewis,” likely London bookbinder Charles Lewis (1786-1836), according to a note recording the purchase of volume and cost of binding on the blank opposite the title; expertly rebacked to style, corners lightly refurbished, the gilt supra libros slightly rubbed, a few faint scuffs and pale stains to boards.

"The first sizeable work written in English about the new-found continent… it remained a standard work, the foundation of England's knowledge of America during the early period of colonization" (Printing and the Mind of Man, 124). 

The rare 1624 first edition, first issue of The Generall Historie, with all the maps. This seminal work, Smith’s magnum opus, is one of the foundational sources for information about the English settlements in America and Bermuda. It was partly compiled from Captain John Smith’s four earlier reports on the colonies in Virginia and New England, all of which are very rare. The text covers his time in Virginia (1606-1609) through his exploration of New England (1610-1617), and it contains Smith’s eyewitness accounts of the founding of the English Colony at Jamestown, as well as his capture by the King of Pamaunkee and subsequent rescue through the intercession of Pocahontas.

The Generall Historie is divided into six books: the first contains accounts of the first settlement of Virginia and the subsequent voyages there to 1605; the second is Smith’s description of the country and its Indian inhabitants; the third recounts Smiths voyage and the settlement of Jamestown from 1606 to 1609; the fourth continues Virginia’s history from 1609 to 1623, including the planting of Point Comfort; the fifth is the history of the English settlement in the Bermudas (here called The Summer Isles); and the sixth contains the history of New England from 1614 to 1624. This is an early impression of the text, with “thir” for “their” on the last line of p. 90, but “digression relacing “degression” in the shoulder note on page 119. All copies lack pp. 97-104 (signature O) – according to Henry Stevens, the manuscript was given to two printing houses to be put to type, evidenced by the variations in initial letters and the style of the headings, and there was miscalculation in the number of leaves that the first portion would take up.

The maps are among the most important in American history. For example, “Virginia,” which appears in editions of both Purchas’ and Smith’s histories, was the prototype for maps of the area for the next half century (Burden, 213). “New England” was, “the foundation map of New England cartography, the one that gave [New England] its name and the first devoted to the region” (Burden, 187). While some copies include portraits of Princess Frances and Pocahontas, there is disagreement as to whether they are called for – they may have been inserted sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, in line with the book collecting fads of the time.

REFERENCES

STC 22790; Church 402; European Americana 624/152; Printing and the Mind of Man 124; Sabin 82824

PROVENANCE

John Haslewood (gilt armorial bookplate) — his sale, London, Evans in Pall Mall, 16 December 1833 — G. Musgrave (gilt supralibros) — Roy V. Boswell — Gregory S. Javitch — present owner