John Speed is considered to be one of the most important figures of all English mapmakers, and two of his crowning achievements were his atlases of Great Britain and the world. His atlas of Great Britain, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, was first published in 1612 and was intended as a companion to his History of Great Britaine, which was a comprehensive history beginning in Roman times. Speed partnered with London publishers John Sudbury and George Humble to create these works, and Jodocus Hondius Sr. was hired to engrave the maps. Sixty-seven maps of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and their counties were engraved for the atlas. Although Speed’s county maps were largely copied or adapted from maps by William Smith, Robert Cotton, Christopher Saxton, John Norden and others, he made several cartographic improvements over his contemporaries. For one, he more accurately mapped the administrative divisions of the counties, including lathes, hundreds, wapentakes, and cantreds. In addition, he added numerous inset town plans, many of which had not previously been mapped. As a result, The Theatre served as the first collection of printed plans within England and Wales.

The success of The Theatre prompted Speed and Humble (as Sudbury had already retired) to publish a world atlas with 22 maps. The maps were again engraved in Amsterdam, this time by Abraham Goos, Evert Symontsz Hamersveldt, and Dirck Gryp. These maps were also based on contemporary sources by (mostly Dutch) mapmakers such as Willem Blaeu, Pieter van den Keere, Claes Janz Visscher, and Jodocus Hondius. A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World was first published in 1627, and it was often bound together with The Theatre.

The rights to the folio editions of The Theatre and Prospect were owned by John Sudbury and George Humble, not John Speed. After Sudbury retired circa 1618, the plates became the full property of George Humble, and were passed to his son, William, after George’s death in 1640. William Humble published several editions and then sold the rights to the plates and atlases to William Garrett in 1659, who never published them himself, but rather sold them to Roger Rea the Elder and Younger soon thereafter. The Reas only published one edition around 1665, and then circa 1675 the plates passed to Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell.

The Basset and Chiswell edition is considered to be one of the most important, second only to the first edition, as it includes four maps of British Dominions that were newly engraved by Francis Lamb, as well as maps of the Great Mogul, East Indies, Russia, and Palestine. Bassett and Chiswell recognized that the Prospect required some updating as they were issuing it 50 years after the maps had been originally engraved. In particular, the British possessions in North America were absent from the original set of maps, and so Lamb engraved maps of Virginia, New England, the Carolinas, and Jamaica and Barbados. Basset and Chiswell published the last complete edition of the Theatre and Prospect that included both text and maps, however many of the maps were used in various atlases and collations through 1754 by Christopher Browne, Henry Overton, and Cluer Dicey.

This example has both volumes bound together, with 68 maps in The Theatre and 28 maps in A Prospect, for a total of 96 maps. In this example, a map of the British Islands (Garnsey, Holy Island, etc.) was erroneously printed in place of the map of the British Isles (The Kingdome of Great Britaine and Ireland), so the latter map is lacking in this example and the British Islands map is included twice. The maps, text, title pages, and frontispiece are otherwise all present.

Handsomely rebound in period-correct full calf binding with gold frames on covers; raised bands with gold tooling, embossing and a red Morocco title label on spine; and new endpapers. This example is from the collection of a direct descendant of John Speed, and has been in the family's possession for the last century. Prior to the Speed family, the atlas was owned by J. Hornsby Wright of London and George Stace (1852-1918) JP, Mayor of Cambridge.

Click here to read more about the life and works of John Speed.

References: Baynton-Williams (MapForum #10) pp. 24-35; Shirley (BL Atlases) T.SPE-1j & 2f; Tooley (Map Collector #1) pp. 4-9.

Condition: A

The maps are overall in excellent condition with light toning along the edges of the sheets, with very occasional extraneous creases, spots of foxing, or rust spots. There are perhaps 5-6 maps that would be considered only "B+" condition due to more noticeable creases or small stains, such as the map of Virginia & Maryland. The map of Bermuda is in "B" condition due to some staining. There are professional repairs to a centerfold separation on the world map, as well as short edge tears on a few maps and chips on the frontispiece and main title page. There are light dampstains confined to the top margin of the latter half of "A Prospect" and worm tracks in the top margin of 8 of the maps within the middle of "A Prospect." Original armorial bookplates from J. Hornsby Wright and George Stace have been preserved on the interior front pastedown. The new binding is pristine.