Purchas His Pilgrimes. London: William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, 1625. Volume 1: Double-page map of the Mughal Empire; 13 maps in text. [36], 186, [10], 468, 479-642, 645-748, [24] pages, including engraved additional title ("Hakluytus Posthumus") in second state dated 1625, and blank R4; lacks initial blank. First state of G3r (with planispheric rather than double-hemispheric world map), 2T6 (with incorrect pagination), and 4M4v (with headline "Hollanders lying devices, to disgrace the English" etc.) Volume 2: 7 text illustrations; 24 maps in text. [4], 749-857, 860-1270, 1269-1860, [40] pages. Restoration in blank corner of 5D4, 6P5, 6Y5 (with slight text loss), and 2e3, clean tear in 7S3, colophon leaf mounted Volume 3: Double-page maps of Greenland and China (the latter slightly trimmed in margins and rehinged); 19 maps in text; for the map of North America see below. [26] (of [28]), 668, 699-1006, 1009-1140, [68] pages; lacks initial blank. Small rust hole in blank lower margin of S6-T2 and through sidenote on 2P1, restoration in blank corner of 3B1, 3E6, and 4G2 Volume 4: Double-page maps of Virginia in Verner's state 10 (trimmed near plate mark on left and into border on right, remargined at bottom) and New England/Canada; 2 maps in text. [6] (of [8]), 1141-1234, 1237-1973 , [41] pages; lacks initial blank. Restoration in blank corner of 5I1, dampstain in blank corner of several leaves in middle of volume.
Purchas His Pilgrimage. London: William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, 1626. Double-page maps of China and North America (the latter supposed to be bound in Volume 3 of Purchas His Pilgrimes). [38] (of [40]), 242, 241-636, 635-1047, [36] pages, with dedication to King Charles; lacks initial blank. Minor restoration in blank outer margin of ¶4, 2A5 supplied from a shorter copy, rust hole in 4X2.
first edition of the main work, "one of the fullest and most important collections of voyages and travels in the english language" (Church), with part of the third and all of the fourth volume devoted to the New World. "The Pilgrimes (as it is usually known) was the culmination of almost twenty years' collecting oral and written accounts . . . It was based in part on Hakluyt's remaining manuscripts, which Purchas had acquired about 1620 . . . 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" (ODNB). Included as a supplement is the fourth and best edition of the 1613 Purchas His Pilgrimage, the first comprehensive study of the diversity of world religions, of which pages 791-967 concern the Americas. Alden 625/173, 626/101; Books on Ice 1.2 ("in several instances our major source of information about early English Arctic travelers"); Church 401A; 1403; Dibdin, The Library Companion, page 381 (discussing this set); Shirley 259, 311; STC 20509, 20508.5.
fine set (surpassed only by Thomas Grenville's, according to Dibdin) with the following provenance: Colonel Thomas Stanley, lot 1006 in his sale at Evans, 8 May 1813, to Protheroe for £50 8s.; the classical scholar Henry Drury, with his signed collation note dated 1820, lot 3669 in his sale at Evans, 17 March 1827, to Howell & Stuart; Lancelot and Henry Holland, lot 1384 in their sale at Sotheby & Wilkinson, 27 July 1860, to Boone for Henry Hucks Gibbs, 1st Baron Aldenham, with the latter's signature dated St. Dunstan's 1860 and his armorial bookplates, lot 305 in the Aldenham Library sale at Sotheby & Co., 24 March 1937, to Hadley; and Dr. Joseph M. Weidberg, lot 206 in his sale at Parke-Bernet, 26 October 1965, to the current owner.