From the Library of Jay Michael Haft

Purchas, Samuel

Purchas His Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discouered, from the Creation Unto This Present. In Foure Parts. This First Containeth a Theologicall and Geographical Historie of Asia, Africa, and America, with the Islands Adiacent. ... Declaring the Ancient Religions Before the Floud ... With Briefe Descriptions of the Countries, Nations, States, Discoueries; Priuate and Publike Customes, and the Most Remarkable Rarities of Nature, or Humane Industrie, in the Same. The Second Edition, Much Enlarged with Additions Through the Whole Worke. London: Printed by William Stansby for Henrie Featherstone, 1614

Small folio (279 x 175 mm). Duplicated leaf Kkkk5 in Table at end. Numerous woodcut illustrations; marginal re♍pa🤡ir on E3 crossing text, a few occasional rust-holes catching letters, occasional small marginal stains, DD6-Ee1 with pale stain, II4 and Qq5 with lower fore-corners renewed, Ccc3 with stain and associated effacement of a few letters, wormtrack in extreme lower gutter margin towards end. 17th-century English paneled calf; rebacked to match, corners renewed.

Second edition, "much enlarged with additions through the whole work," after the fiཧrst of the previous year, of this famous coll♑ection of travel narratives.

The present work achieved immediate and widespread popularity, and Purchas would later publish these travel stories in full througho❀ut four editions published between 1613 and 1626. The first three parts relate to travels in Asia, Africa, and the East Indies, and the rest of the chapters include accounts of New France, Virginia, Florida, explorations of Caꦆbeza de Vaca, Columbus, Frobisher, Cartier, Hudson, Raleigh, Cortes, and others, along with general histories of the conquests of Mexico, Peru, and several Caribbean islands.

"The Pilgrimes (as it is usually known) was the culmination of almost twenty years' collecting oral and written accounts of travels in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas ... The result was a four-volume folio that took more than three years to print; at the time of its publication it was the largest book ever seen through the English press. The Pilgrimes combined editing with editorializing to comprise the bulkiest anti-Catholic tract of the age and the last great English work of geographical editing for almost a century. Its four volumes traversed the world from the ancient Near East to the latest English colonies ... Purchas edited oral accounts and manuscripts (many from Hakluyt's papers), translated texts in classical and foreign languages, and reprinted previously published works" (ODNB).

REFERENCE:

Alden & Landis/European Americana 614/94; JCB (3)II:105; ESTC S1118ꦦ28; Sabin 66679

PROVENANCE:

George ? (effaced early signature and pen tr꧟ails on title)