Etched for John Overton by the great continental engraver Wenceslaus Hollar in 1666, this example was published by Henry Overton shortly after his father’s death. Although the map is a copy of Speed’s map of 1611 reduced in scale, Hollar’s distinctive etching style shows most in the prospect of Windsor Castle (which contains Hollar’s etched signature) and the illustrations of the dress of the Knights of the Garter.

John Overton (1640-1713) was the son of a bookseller Henry Overton and married the daughter of the publisher William Garrett. He was a printseller who in 1665 acquired the stock of Peter Stent who died of the plague that year and who had arguably the largest collection of prints on the market at the time. Amongst this stock he found twelve copper plates of the English counties by William Smith. These formed the nucleus of a set of maps of the English Counties. Overton commissioned the engraving of some new plates for missing counties; amongst them is one of Berkshire by the great engraver Wenceslaus Hollar (offered below). Those counties which Overton could not provide from his own stock were supplied by the acquired maps of Speed, Blaeu or Jansson. These county atlases were an English version of a rich seam of similar Dutch composite atlases published from the mid-seventeenth century. They are exceedingly rare surviving in just four known examples. Burden (1994) 14 st. 2; Pennington (1982) no. 658; Skelton (1970) 89.