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OVERTON, John - Anonymous : Wiltonia sive Comitatus Wiltoniensis Anglis Wil Shire

395 x 485 mm., a little worn at the edges, some light browning to the centrefold otherwise a good example.

Following the disastrous Fire of London in 1666 John Overton began the process of building a set of engraved plates of the English counties. Only five were produced, one of which is this map of Wiltshire, copied from that of Jansson by an unknown engraver. Along with that of Devon also copied from Jansson they both bear a Dutch imprint! The Wiltshire is most easily distinguished from its Dutch original by the absence of a full stop after the county name in the title. An exceedingly rare map. John Overton (1640-1713) was the son of a bookseller Henry Overton and married the daughter of the publisher William Garrett. He was a printseller who in 1665 acquired the stock of Peter Stent who died of the plague that year and who had arguably the largest collection of prints on the market at the time. Amongst this stock he found twelve copper plates of the English counties by William Smith. These formed the nucleus of a set of maps of the English Counties. Overton commissioned the engraving of some new plates for missing counties; amongst them is one of Berkshire by the great engraver Wenceslaus Hollar (offered below). Those counties which Overton could not provide from his own stock were supplied by the acquired maps of Speed, Blaeu or Jansson. These county atlases were an English version of a rich seam of similar Dutch composite atlases published from the mid-seventeenth century. They are exceedingly rare surviving in just four known examples. Hodson (1984-97) I p. 61.

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