A very attractive map of the Gulf of Mexico and West Indies in original colour. It was engraved by Jacob van der Schley (1715-79) after J. N. Bellin. Bellin’s originals were published in Antoine Francois Prevost d’Exiles’ ‘Histoire Générale des Voyages’, a twenty-volume work published in Paris between 1746 and 1789. Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal (1713-96) was a Jesuit author of many historical works including the ‘L’Histoire Philosophique et Politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes’, first published in Amsterdam in 1770 in four volumes. It was perhaps his best-known work but was in fact banned in France, copies being publicly burned in 1779. Following the issue of an arrest warrant he fled the country only to return later and become elected States-General, such were the vagaries of French politics of the time.

This map is from the ‘Atlas Portatif pour server a l’Intelligence de ‘L’Histoire Philosophique et Politique’, designed to accompany the larger work. It was first published in 1773 from which this example comes. A later edition was issued from 1780 using maps by Rigobert Bonne. Not in British Library; Brunet (1860-80) IV, 1126; Koeman (1967-70) II Har 1; Phillips (1909-) 5987; refer Sabin (1868) 68080; Tooley’s Dictionary (1999-2004).