A fine rare English double-hemispheric seventeenth century world map. In September 1678 Robert Morden (fl. 1669, d. 1703) and William Berry (1639-1718) petitioned the crown for ‘a licence to do all general and particular maps of the several parts of the world according to an alphabeticall manner’. Morden’s connection with what appears to be the birth of the folio atlas is not heard of again. Berry began publishing a series of large two sheet maps with a group of the world and continents advertised in the ‘London Gazette’, from 1-5 July 1680. The world is also announced in the ‘Term Catalogues’ for the summer of that year. This only mentions the world map, which would undoubtedly have been finished first, and the continents would have followed. Berry did not advertise his next two sheet map, that of England, until February 1682.

‘Through the 1680s Berry published nearly forty large maps of parts of the world, sufficient to cover it all. From the late 1680s he clearly offered them bound together as a collection of maps as a handful of examples are known, but this was clearly not the intention for the maps, as none have borne any title page. Examples are known in the British Library, the Library of Congress and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, all bearing either thirty-seven or thirty-eight maps. An example has been noted for sale by Maggs Brothers, which bore sixty-nine maps, the balance being made up of contemporary English maps by other cartographers dating the atlas to c.1704, and two further offered at Christies auctions in London in the 1980s’ (Burden).

Cartographically the world map is drawn directly from that of Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, 1674. Jaillot’s map was, in turn, derived from Nicolas Sanson’s geography, who is here recognised in the running title above, ‘Described by Sanson Corrected and amended By William Berry’. Sanson had far more of a reputation in cartographic circles than Jaillot so it is natural that Berry would use his name. These ‘amendments’ include the patriotically named islands off Tierra del Fuego and ‘New Albion’ placed in California. New Guinea is distinctly an island and there is no southern continent. An ornate cartouche lower centre includes an effusive dedication to Charles II. Armitage (2012) pp. 41 & 99-100; Burden (1996-2007) 532; Phillips (1909-) 3442; Shirley (1984) 501; Shirley (2004) T.Berr 1a; Tyacke (1973) p. 76; Tyacke (1978) no. 100 & pp. 109-10.