A Pocket Book. Containing severall choice collections in Arethmetick Astronomy. Geometry. Surveying. Dialling. Navigation, Astrology. Geography. Measuring. Gaugeing. …

Octavo; engraved title-page, 81, [3]pp.; seventy-three engraved plates, on fortythree single-pages and twenty-five double-page plates, six double-page engraved maps. Recent speckled calf, covers panelled in blind, five raised bands and red morocco label with gilt lettering to spine. [London :] The Booksellers of London and Westminster

Rare late edition of Seller’s Pocket Book, seemingly the text block of the Jeremiah Seller and Charles Price sr. printing, but with the title-page re-engraved to erase their imprint. This was presumably done at the end of the Seller and Price partnership, when the partners went bankrupt, circa 1707.

 

The Pocket Book is of notoriously difficult collation; it was first published in 1676 or 1677, and re-issued frequently thereafter to about 1707, with some of the composition due to the whim of the purchaser.

 

It was a handy pocket-sized vademecum for the gentleman. As described on the title-page, there are sections to answer all sorts of problems. The first section, not listed on the title-page, is calendar-related: tables for the twelve months, tables to find Easter Day, the New Moon, the day of the month, a perpetual almanac, sign of the Moon and so on.

 

The other principal grouping in this copy is geometrical and trigonometrical tables and diagrams. At the end is the set of maps of the World and continents, the Americas on two sheets, North and South America; these maps were also used in editions of Seller’s pocket atlases, the New Systeme of Geography [1684, and later], and Atlas Terrestris [ca. 1685, and later]. One of the rarest plates is ‘A Generall Description of the several Parts of Fortification’.

 

Reference: this edition is unrecorded in ESTC but cf. R16068.

Stock Code: 223497