London: Printed for Robert White, T. Basset, R. Chiswell, G. Dawes, and T. Sawbridge, 1677. Folio.
A substantial and handsome seventeenth-century edition of Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World, written during his imprisonment in the Tower of London between 1603 and 1616. This edition includes, as issued, “The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,” “The Arraignment of Sir Walter Raleigh,” and related documentary material appended to the main text
Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait, decorative black-and-red title page, eight folding double-page maps and battle plans, and two charts within the text. Text printed in double columns throughout.
The work traces universal history from the Creation to the Roman conquest of Asia and Macedon, structured in five books covering Biblical history, the ancient Near East, Greece, and the Hellenistic world. Although ostensibly a universal history, Raleigh’s narrative has long been understood as containing veiled commentary on kingship, tyranny, and the conduct of princes - an interpretation that led King James I to suppress the book shortly after publication, ordering unsold copies confiscated for being “too saucy in censuring Princes”
Raleigh, the famed Elizabethan explorer and courtier, dedicated the work to Prince Henry, whose early death in 1612 contributed to the unfinished nature of the project; the history breaks off earlier than Raleigh originally intended. Shortly after his release from imprisonment in 1616, Raleigh undertook a final expedition to South America, was accused of violating a peace treaty with Spain, and was executed in 1618.
Binding: Rebound in later quarter leather with marbled paper boards, spine gilt.
Condition:
Very good overall. Rebound in later quarter leather with marbled paper boards, spine gilt. The text block is sound and complete. There is evidence of early water damage to the lower margins of the opening leaves, which has been professionally stabilised and sympathetically repaired by a skilled conservator. The repairs are neat and unobtrusive, with no loss of text or impact to legibility. Elsewhere, expected age-toning and light staining consistent with a seventeenth-century folio. Folding maps and plans present and in good condition.
A cornerstone of early modern English historiography and political thought, and one of the most significant books produced by an English author in the seventeenth century.
