The Coasting Pilot. Describing the Sea-Coasts, Capes, Headlands, Soundings, Sands, Shoals, Rocks and Dangers. The Bays, Roads, Harbours, Rivers and Ports of England, Scotland, Holland, Zealand, Flande

£17,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Apparently unique compilation of the six constituent volumes of the English Pilot bound in two, lacking all the inserted charts, but the text complete, retaining the engraved charts in the text (notably in the ‘Fourth Book’: Antigua, Barbados and Bermuda), with the woodcuts and engravings in fine original wash colour. There is no indication of the charts having been removed; it may be that they were originally bound separately or not purchased at all. The individual volumes of the English Pilot series were the best available English chart books for much of the eighteenth century. The series was begun by John Seller in 1671, with the Northern Navigation, and 1672, Southern Navigation and subsequently expanded by Seller, his successors and heirs with the Mediterranean Pilot (1677), West-India Pilot (1689), West African Pilot (1701) and Oriental Navigation (1703). As a working book, individual editions of the various volumes can be rare. This group, put together at the time of the Seven Years’ War / French and Indian War contains several rare printings, but the real significance is the assemblage of the volumes together and the exceptional original colouring throughout, these volumes clearly intended for library use, hence the colouring and fine internal condition. Locations: Coasting Pilot (title-page only): ESTC N44114: only Folger Shakespeare English Pilot Southern: apparently unrecorded, but cf. ESTC N47593. Northern: unrecorded in ESTC. Mediterranean: ESTC N69402: recording

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