Folio (334 x 236 mm). Engraved title-page (with the privilege statement engraved), dedication to Maximilian I of Bavaria with his large engraved arms, double-page map of Virginia by Theodor de Bry after John White, 28 numbered engravings [17 half-page with letterpress text, the rest full-page or larger]. Woodcut head- and tail-piece ornaments and initials; with blank leaf D6 present. (Some pin-hole worming, heavier at end, occasionally touching letters or plates, short mostly marginal wormtrack to last ca 14 leaves occasionally touching letters or plates, plate XVIII with small loss at foot with repair and a portion of the background provided in facsimile, a few short marginal tears.) 18th-century mottled sheep (neatly rebacked to style). Provenance: Durazzo family of Genoa (engraved book label of Girolamo Durazzo at foot of title-page).

THE FIRST VOLUME OF DE BRY'S GREAT VOYAGES, THOMAS HARIOT'S DESCRIPTION OF VIRGINIA

FIRST EDITION IN LATIN, MOSTLY FIRST ISSUE (see below). Thomas Hariot's text, the first description of Virginia and North Carolina, was first published in English in 1588, an edition of which only 6 copies are known, and then here republished in Latin. John White and Thomas Hariot accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh's 1585 expedition to Roanoke. Hariot served as translator, having learned Carolina Algonquin the year before from two chiefs brought to England by Raleigh. White returned to Virginia in 1587, becoming governor, where he remained until he was forced to return to England for supplies. His return was delayed by the war with Spain, and when he returned in 1590, the colony had vanished.

The 23 illustrations to the text, after watercolors by John White (now in the British Museum), provide an important visual record of the New World and its inhabitants as encountered by the English colonists. They depict scenes of native Virginian life and show the ancient Picts. Theodore de Bry's map, also after White, is "one of the most significant cartographical milestones in colonial North American history. It was the most accurate map drawn in the sixteenth century of any part of that continent. It became the prototype of the area... This is the first map to focus on Virginia (now largely North Carolina), and records the first English attempts at colonisation in the New World" (Burden 76).

Most plates in the first issue (except plates 5, 6, 9 and 15 in the second issue); title-page in the second issue with engraved privilege statement; the map in Burden's third state. M. Sobolewski, as quoted by Sabin, concluded that "the two impressions [or issues] of the first edition are always to be found mingled ... and that it is impossible to decide the question of priority."

Alden & Landis 590/31; Burden 76; Church 140 (calling the engraved title present in this copy the first state title-page); Sabin 8784; Streeter II:1091 (with the title-page and plates 5, 6, 9, and 15 in the same states as the present copy).