A rare issue of Speed’s map of Bermuda

A fine example of one of the first English atlas map of the Bermuda, after the map compiled by Richard Norwood for the Bemuda Company in 1618. It shows the islands divided into tribes and lots. The map was engraved by Abraham Good and was first published in John Speed's world atlas, 'A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World' in 1627. It was influential and was copied by both Blaeu and Jansson. It resulted in a a cartographic error that lasted to the end of the 18th century. Speed included an outline of the American mainland with a miniature map of Bermuda to show its relative position. Later mapmakers, including Le Rouge and Zatta, copied the map but without the outline of America, but retaining an island of Bermuda off the northern coast of Bermuda. This example comes from the Roger Rea issue, which was beset with disaster: according to an advert for the 1676 Bassett & Chiswell edition, ''the greatest part of an Impression, then newly Printed, [was] destroyed by the late dreadful Fire, 1666". Surviving examples of any Rea map are thus rare.