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Code: 53400
Author: Speed, John
Publisher: George Humble.
Date published: 1676
waf. Described by John Norden..augmented by I. Speed And are to be solde by Tho Bassett in Fleetstreet and Ric: Chiswell in St Pauls Churchyard. Jodocus Hondius caelavit. Copper engraving with later hand colouring. English text to verso. Overall size : 54.1cms x 42.1cms. Image size : 510mm x 382mm. English text to verso. Town plan of Colchester surmounted by coins bearing the heads of the Emperor Constantine and his parents Constantius and Helena, all Romans born in Britain. The left hand side depicts the arms of the Earles of Essex. London is shown bottom left and Tottenham,Newington, Hackney and Straffford Bow, Blackwall also marked. Centre fold as published. From the front the map looks stunning but from the verso it its obvious that there are repairs to the centrefold, the bottom repair is of a 6cms crack at the centrefold, the other repair is a strengthening; the four edges have been re - margined with old paper to augment thread margins presumably; one repair bottom right on verso into map. Printer's crease running through town plan but not visible (C17th flaw). Much nicer than this sounds but flaws reflected in the price. Until his late thirties, John Speed was a tailor by trade but his passion for history and map-making led him to gain a patron in Sir Fulke Greville, the poet and statesman, who found him a post in the customs and helped subsidise his map-making, giving him "full liberty to express the inclination of my mind"". He became acquainted with the publisher William Camden