of the English Map Trade, 1670–1710,” his attempt to synthesize the combined knowledge that he’d acquired digging through the New York Public Library’s collections and bidding in auctions overseas. As he continued to study, Smiley felt that scholars had passed by English mapmaking at the turn of the eighteenth century—a period that he saw as seminal to the settlement of North America. Smiley focused in on a particular figure whom he saw as key to this development.
John Seller was born around 1632 and apparently had a tumultuous youth, which led to prison time at age thirty for an alleged plot againstthe Church of England. He began publishing and selling books and maps in an East London shop around 1667, bringing out a well-received navigational treatise. He was appointed hydrographer to the king and awarded a contract to sell compasses and spyglasses to the Royal Navy. But Seller had greater ambitions—nothing less than a complete atlas of all the major sea routes then plied by British ships.
In 1671, he announced his plan: four books, covering the North Seas; the Mediterranean and Western Africa; the Orient; and finally, the Americas. Called
The English Pilot,
it would eventually become, as Smiley wrote, “the earliest sea atlas published in England, and the only guide to foreign waters which England produced for nearly a century.” His early efforts fell short of his ambitions.
The
First Book
was little more than a compilation of Dutch charts, which Seller had only slightly reworked—sometimes Dutch titles still showed through superimposed English names. No less a wit than Samuel Pepys, the great diarist, derided Seller’s atlas as a “pretended new book.”
Pepys was probably being unfair. The Dutch plates were as geographically accurate as anything at the time, and Seller did little to hide the fact that he was reworking other sources. Starting with
The
Second Book
of
The
English Pilot
in 1672, however, Seller began leaning on new original British surveys of the coasts. In
The
Third Book
in 1675, the majority of the charts were original, including some of the first maps of Cape Town in South Africa. That same year, Seller produced a kind of compilation atlas of his best maps, called the
Atlas Maritimus,
which he custom built for individual buyers depending upon their needs, so no two copies were the same.
While the atlas succeeded, however, Seller himself did not. By this time, Smiley wrote in
AB Bookman’s Weekly,
he “had lost control of the project. About 1675 Seller experienced financial difficulties stemming from his overly ambitious projects, and was forced to seek the help of other booksellers.” Seller proposed a consortium, whereby all the partners would enter into a deal together to finish the project, splitting the risk and rewards.
Initially, the plan worked, enough for Seller to start on
The
Fourth Book
of
The English Pilot,
covering the Americas, in 1678. A year later, however, the consortium, too, failed. Seller’s plates, which he had worked so hard to assemble over a period of nearly a decade, were dispersed to thevarious members, who took them to make their own sea atlases. “Seller lost most everything,” wrote Smiley. For the next two decades, his print shop limped along, but Seller was never able to regain control of his work, and he died poor in 1697.
Despite his individual failure,
The English Pilot
project wasn’t entirely dead. One of the members of the consortium, John Thornton, began buying back the original plates one by one from the other dealers and made a deal to publish them with another member, William Fisher, who had retained the naming rights. In 1689, Thornton and Fisher put out the first full edition of
The
English Pilot, The Fourth Book.
The preceding decade had changed the fortunes of Great Britain, which by now had begun a lucrative trade with its American colonies. That placed the book in high demand by merchant captains, and Thornton prospered where
John Seller was born around 1632 and apparently had a tumultuous youth, which led to prison time at age thirty for an alleged plot againstthe Church of England. He began publishing and selling books and maps in an East London shop around 1667, bringing out a well-received navigational treatise. He was appointed hydrographer to the king and awarded a contract to sell compasses and spyglasses to the Royal Navy. But Seller had greater ambitions—nothing less than a complete atlas of all the major sea routes then plied by British ships.
In 1671, he announced his plan: four books, covering the North Seas; the Mediterranean and Western Africa; the Orient; and finally, the Americas. Called
The English Pilot,
it would eventually become, as Smiley wrote, “the earliest sea atlas published in England, and the only guide to foreign waters which England produced for nearly a century.” His early efforts fell short of his ambitions.
The
First Book
was little more than a compilation of Dutch charts, which Seller had only slightly reworked—sometimes Dutch titles still showed through superimposed English names. No less a wit than Samuel Pepys, the great diarist, derided Seller’s atlas as a “pretended new book.”
Pepys was probably being unfair. The Dutch plates were as geographically accurate as anything at the time, and Seller did little to hide the fact that he was reworking other sources. Starting with
The
Second Book
of
The
English Pilot
in 1672, however, Seller began leaning on new original British surveys of the coasts. In
The
Third Book
in 1675, the majority of the charts were original, including some of the first maps of Cape Town in South Africa. That same year, Seller produced a kind of compilation atlas of his best maps, called the
Atlas Maritimus,
which he custom built for individual buyers depending upon their needs, so no two copies were the same.
While the atlas succeeded, however, Seller himself did not. By this time, Smiley wrote in
AB Bookman’s Weekly,
he “had lost control of the project. About 1675 Seller experienced financial difficulties stemming from his overly ambitious projects, and was forced to seek the help of other booksellers.” Seller proposed a consortium, whereby all the partners would enter into a deal together to finish the project, splitting the risk and rewards.
Initially, the plan worked, enough for Seller to start on
The
Fourth Book
of
The English Pilot,
covering the Americas, in 1678. A year later, however, the consortium, too, failed. Seller’s plates, which he had worked so hard to assemble over a period of nearly a decade, were dispersed to thevarious members, who took them to make their own sea atlases. “Seller lost most everything,” wrote Smiley. For the next two decades, his print shop limped along, but Seller was never able to regain control of his work, and he died poor in 1697.
Despite his individual failure,
The English Pilot
project wasn’t entirely dead. One of the members of the consortium, John Thornton, began buying back the original plates one by one from the other dealers and made a deal to publish them with another member, William Fisher, who had retained the naming rights. In 1689, Thornton and Fisher put out the first full edition of
The
English Pilot, The Fourth Book.
The preceding decade had changed the fortunes of Great Britain, which by now had begun a lucrative trade with its American colonies. That placed the book in high demand by merchant captains, and Thornton prospered where
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