Moll, Herman | The monumental world map

Moll, Herman

A New and Correct Map of the Whole World, Shewing ye Situation of Its Principal Parts... London: H. Moll, T. & J. Bowles, P. Overton & J. King , [dated 1719, but circa 1730]

Copper-engraved map, on four joined sheets (overall: 1,248 x 738 mm), with original hand-color in outline: a few stray spots, reinforcements to verso of folds, some skillful restoration with areas of neat facsimile.

A striking copy of Herman Moll's monumental world map, charted on Mercator's Projection.

The present map was part of Herman Moll's magnificent folio work, a New and Compleat Atlas. Moll was the most important cartographer working in London during his era, and his career spanned over fifty years. His origins have been a source of great scholarly debate; however, the prevailing opinion suggests that he hailed from the Hanseatic port city of Bremen, Germany. Joining a number of his countrymen, he fled the turmoil of the Scanian Wars, and in 1678 is first recorded as working in London as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas.

It was not long before Moll found himself a member of London's most interesting social circle, which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill. It was at this establishment that speculators met to trade equities (most notoriously South Sea Company shares). Moll's coffeehouse circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers, and William Hacke. From these friends, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was later conveyed in his cartographic compositions, some of which appeared in the works of these same figures. Moll was highly astute, both politically and commercially, and he was consistently able to craft maps and atlases that appealed to the particular fancy of wealthy patrons, as well as the popular trends of the day. His works are often amongst the very finest maps of their subjects ever created with toponymy in the English language.

REFERENCES:

Shirley, Maps in the Atlases of the British Library I, T.Moll-4b, 2