First Description of the Spanish Territories in the New World by an Englishman
The New Survey of the West-Indies: Or, The English American his Travel by Sea and Land: Containing A Journal of Three Thousand and Three Hundred Miles within the main Land of America: Wherein is set forth His Voyage from Spain to St. John de Vihna; and thence to Xalappa, to Tlaxcall, the City of Angels, and forward to Mexico: With a Description of that Great City, as it was in former times, and also at this present. Likewise His Journey from Mexico... As Also His Strange and Wonderful Conversion and Calling from Those Remote Parts... With a Grammar, or Some Rudiments of the Indian Tongue, called Poconchi or Pocoman. The Third Edition. Enlarged by the Author, with a New and Accurate Map.
London: Printed by A. Clark, and are to be sold by John Martyn, Robert Horn and Walter Kettilby, 1677.
Price: $2,250.00
About the item
Third edition, and first edition thus, "Enlarged by the Author, with a New and Accurate Map" Large engraved folding map: "New Map of the Empire of Mexico" (measuring circa 16 by 11 1/2 inches). [viii], [1](map), 477, [18]pp. 8vo. First Description of the Spanish Territories in the New World by an Englishman. Later half calf and marbled boards. Ex-library copy, with small perforation stamp in lower margin of title page, small ink "withdrawn" rubberstamp on verso of title page. Folding map has few short closed tears at folds, scattered foxing to text, else a very good copy, with the text clean. Wing G114; ESTC R13282; Hill 665 (first edition); Pilling 1365; Sabin 26299.
Item #333174
Originally published in 1648 as The English-American his travail by sea and land, this edition enlarged. "The English-born Gage was sent to Spain by his father in 1612 to study with the Jesuits. He chose to join the Dominican order instead, and did not return to his native land for 24 years. In 1625 he left Spain for the Philippines, smuggled aboard ship in an empty biscuit barrel to circumvent the King of Spain's decrees against foreigners in the Spanish territories of the New World. Most of the next twelve years Gage spent among the Indians and, on occasion, acted as parish priest or professor of philosophy. His book, published after his return, caused a great sensation, for it was the first to give the world a desription of the vast regions from which foreigners had been jealously excluded by Spanish authorities ... its purpose was to urge the English to seize the Spanish territories in the New World" (Hill 665).
