[Americas] Laet, Johannes de. Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien

Tweede druck. In ontallijke plaetsen verbetert, met eenige nieuwe caerten, beelden van verscheyden dieren ende planten verciert. Halftitle: "Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien." Leiden, Elsevier, 1630, (28),622,(17) p., w. engr. title, 14 folding engr. maps by Hessel Gerritsz., and woodcut ills., cont. overlapping vellum, folio. Waterst. on fore-edge margin at the beginning and partly (vaguely) in upper outer corner. Without first free endpaper, overlapping part of vellum of upper cover warped, some minor other internal and external imperfections.

Tiele 626; Willems 327; Borba de Moraes, p. 384; Alden & Landis 30/88; Sabin 38555. Cf. Burden, The Mapping of North America 229-231. Rare second enlarged edition, the first edition (w. only 10 maps) was published in 1625 by Isaac Elsevier in Leiden. Johannes de Laet (1581-1649) was director of the Dutch West India Company WIC, and as such had access to important and detailed information. The work is divided in 18 chapters ("boecken"), devoted to different regions of the New World: The West Indies, Canada, Virginia, Florida, Mexico, discoveries in California, the Gulf of California, New Mexico, the Northern coast of South America, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. The fine maps show the Western Hemisphere, the Caribbean, New France, New England and Virginia, Florida, Mexico and Central America, Terra Firma (north-western South America), Peru, Chile, far South America, Paraguay and the Rio de la Plata basin, Brazil, Guiana, and Venezuela.