BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Creator:
Seller, John
Title:
A mapp
of New
England
Publication information:
London: Seller, 1675
Description:
Copperplate engraving,
hand colored, 45 x 55 cm.
Subjects:
New England--Maps--Early
works to 1800
New York (State)--Maps--Early works to 1800
Notes:
1. Scale 1:950,400.
2. Published in his Atlas Maritimus or Sea
Atlas.
3. Digital image derived from Kodak Photo CD using slide of
map held by the John Carter Brown Library. Contact John Carter Brown Library for reproduction rights.
John Seller
A Mapp of New England, ca.1675
John Seller was a pioneering British publisher of nautical charts. He bore the
impressive title "Hydrographer in Ordinary" to the king.
Seller’s map of New England, which was first published sometime between 1666 and
1674, is the first printed British map of the New York area not entirely dependent on
Dutch prototypes. It is derived from a variety of British and Dutch sources. Parts of the
map (including the illustrations of animals) are clearly copied from maps like the Blaeu
and Visscher maps described above. The depiction of the Hudson Valley is less accurate
than on the best contemporary Dutch maps, but Long Island shows a number of features that
do not appear on any previous printed maps. Much of this information is derived from an
unpublished map of New England by John Scott, who pursued a controversial political career
on Long Island before being forced to flee to England.
Like many early maps, Seller's chart of New England exists in several different "states," which were usually created by altering the copper plate on which a map was engraved. This version appeared in Seller's Atlas Maritimus, or the Sea-Atlas, which was first published in 1675.
David Yehling Allen, Long Island Maps and Their Makers , 12-16
William P. Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America , 38-39
Revised 11/8/01