Beschreibung:

Smith, JohnVirginia Discovered and Described by Captain John Smith London, ca. 1625
Full-sheet engraved map (332 x 413 mm) by William Hole after Smith, first word of title within a banner at center top, remainder of title within emblematic cartouche of surveying instruments at center bottom, inset vignettes of Powhatan sitting in council at upper left and of a member of the Susquehanna people at right margin, royal coat of arms below title banner, Smith's arms lower right, compass rose with north to the right; some minor marginal restoration, a few very small spots of surface abrasion. Float-matted, framed, and glazed with Plexiglas.
"One of the most important printed maps of America ever produced and certainly one of the greatest influence. It became the prototype for the area for half a century until Augustine Herrman's map of 1673. First issued separately in London, it accompanied many editions of various publications for another twenty years. It, therefore, was seen widely and inspired much interest in the fledgling Virginia colony, influencing considerably its eventual success. Consequently the east coast of North America became dominated by the English. To this day the map is still used by archaeologists to locate native Indian villages. It records 166 of them, and is remarkably detailed" (Burden).
Captain John Smith's map of Virginia is based on his personal explorations of the Chesapeake Bay in 1607 and 1608. Smith's detailed and accurate map was first published in the 1612 promotional tract A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, which did much to encourage colonization. The map proved so authoritative that it was frequently reprinted, with ten states appearing over the next two decades (with a further two appearing some years later), and used to illustrate many editions of Smith's own John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624) and Samuel Purchas's Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625).
The present copy is from Verner's and Burden's tenth state: it retains the topographic additions to the ninth state (the insertion of "Washeborne C:" on the Cape Charles peninsula; "Blands C." and "Downes dale" in the interior; and the alteration of "Bollers bush" to "Boolers bush") and additionally has the page numbers for Purchas in the upper corners corrected to 1690–1691.
REFERENCES:Burden 164; Degrees of Latitude 5; Schwartz & Ehrenberg, pp. 89–93; Verner, "Smith's Virginia and its Derivatives," in Tooley, The Mapping of America, pp. 133–72