Beschreibung:

The Trew Description of All the Coasts of China, Cauchinchina Camboya, Sÿao, Malacca, Arraacan, and Pegu, Together with All the Islands There Abowts, both Great and Smale, with the Cliffes, Breaches, Sands, Droughts and Shallowes, All Perfectly Drawne and Examined with the Most Expert Cardes of the Portingales Pilots. London: John Wolfe 1598. Copper-engraved map, 383 x 504 mm, engraved by Robert Beckit, mild toning, left edge with border partially trimmed. THE FIRST ENGLISH MAP OF THE FAR EAST, the very rare English pirated edition from Linschoten's smuggled Portuguese information. Linschoten was a Dutch traveler who, while serving as secretary to the Bishop of Goa from 1583 to 1589, clandestinely assembled significant Portuguese papers and maps. He published his Itinerario in Amsterdam in 1596, which work is credited with ending the Portuguese monopoly on Far Eastern trade. John Wolfe produced a pirated translation of the Itinerario in 1598 with five re-engraved maps. The present extremely beautiful map contains up-to-date Portuguese coastal cartography embellished with speculative detail on the interior (including four mythological lakes), creatures, sailing ships, etc. It is oriented with the west at the top and extends from Korea (depicted as an island) and Japan south of "Beach" (a fictional remnant from Marco Polo, located roughly in place of Australia); comprehending Java, Timor, the Phillipines, the Indochina peninsula, and most of the coast and much of the interior of China. Schilder Australia 18; Schilder Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandici VII, p 222ff; Suarez SE Asia fig 91.