A MAP OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND

This is a near-mint example of Speed’s handsomely engraved work. It is one of the earliest English maps of the area and one of the first to demarcate the borders of colonial Virginia and Maryland. Just three years before the publication of Speed’s map, Augustine Herrman had conducted the first thorough surveys of Maryland at the behest of Lord Baltimore. Speed’s was one of the first maps to adopt this groundbreaking cartography. However, in general outline Speed still followed the prototype of Captain John Smith, who conducted the first European survey of Chesapeake Bay. Speed's map "is the last major derivative of the Smith map, and it is unique as an example of the transition from one basic prototype map to another. The delineation of the land area follows Smith while the toponymic prototype was the Herrman map of 1673." (Verner in Tooley, Mapping of America, p.170) A particularly important feature derived from Herrman by Speed is the boundary line (indicated by a double row of trees) between Virginia and Maryland on the Eastern Shore. English text on the verso contains extensive descriptions of Virginia and Maryland.

John Speed (1551 or 1552 - 28 July 1629) was the best-known English mapmaker of the Stuart period. Speed came to mapmaking late in life, producing his first maps in the 1590s and entering the trade in earnest when he was almost 60 years old. John Speed’s fame, which continues to this day, lies with two atlases, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (first published 1612), and the Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World (1627). While The Theatre started as solely a county atlas, it grew into an impressive world atlas with the inclusion of The Prospect in 1627. The plates for the atlas passed through many hands in the 17th century, and the book finally reached its apotheosis in 1676 when it was published by Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell, with a number of important maps added for the first time.