The Isle Of Pines (1668): and An Essay in Bibliography by Worthington Chauncey FordNeville, Henry
General
The Isle Of Pines (1668): and An Essay in Bibliography by Worthington Chauncey Ford
Neville, Henry
Voyages, Imaginary -- Early works to 1800
The imprints of the three parts agree that the booksellers or publishers
handling the editions were Allen Banks and Charles Harper. The first
part gives their shop as the "Flower-De-luice near Cripplegate Church,"
the second part as the "Flower-de-luce" as before, and the combined
parts as "next door to the three Squerrills in Fleet-street, over
against St. Dunstans Church." The church is still there, with more than
two centuries of dirt and soot marking its walls since Neville wrote,
and Chancery and Fettar Lanes enable one to place quite accurately the
location of the booksellers' shop. Only three times do the names of
Banks and Harper appear as partners on the Stationers' Registers,{1} and
they separated about 1671, Banks going to the "St Peter at the West End
of St Pauls." If any judgment may be drawn from their publications after
ceasing to be partners, Banks leaned to light literature and may have
been responsible for taking up the "Isle of Pines." Yet Harper was
Neville's publisher in 1674 and in 1681, a fact which may indicate a
personal relation.{2}
1 Eyre and Rivington, ii. 386, 388, and 410.
2 Sec page 34, infra.
[26]
NOT AN AMERICAN ITEM
By some curious chance this little pamphlet has come to be classed as
Americana. Bishop Kenneth's Catalogue may have been the source of this
error, leading collectors to believe that the item was a true relation
of an actual voyage, and possibly touching upon some phase of American
history or geography. The rarity of the pamphlet would not permit such a
belief to be readily corrected. The existence also of two Isles of Pines
in American waters may have aided the belief.
One of these islands is off the southwestern end of Cuba. On his second
voyage, Columbus had sailed along the south coast of Cuba, and June
13,1494, reached an island, which he named Evangelista. Here he
encountered such difficulties among the shoals that he determined to
retrace his course to the eastward. But for that experience, he might
have reached the mainland of America on that voyage. The conquest of the
island of Cuba by Diego Velasquez in 1511 led to its exploration; but
geographers could only slowly appreciate what the islands really meant,
for they were as much misled by the reports of navigators as Columbus
had been by his prejudice in favor of Cathay.
Toscanelli's map of the Atlantic Ocean (1474) gives many islands between
Cape Verde and the "coast of spices," of which "Cippangu" is the largest
and most important.{1}
1 This map, as reconstructed from Martin Behaim's globe, is
in Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1893.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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