Large map of Asia from Moll's flagship work, "The World Described....", derived from several sources including the accounts of the English privateers William Dampier and Woodes Rogers.



Moll's map had a long publishing history with issues from the early 18th century as a separate publication, inclusion into the atlas "The World Described . . . a New and Compleat Atlas", which is first thought to have been bound c. 1715 with further issues into the 1760s. There were few updates to its geography in its lifetime with its original sources being mainly French maps from the Academie Royal des Sciences via Guillaume de L'Isle; this accounts for the shape of Arabia, the naming of the Sea of Corea above Japan and the newly defined shape of the Caspian Sea. Moll also adds information provided by Dampier and Woodes Rogers, another famous buccaneer of the period. Several insets of important commercial features are included on the map; these are the Bosphorus, the Hoogly River and the Island of Amoy among others.


The imprint of John Bowles and Son on the map dates this example to the period of 1753-62.



Original hand colour. SL [AS1217]