HUBBARD, William (1621-1704) & FOSTER John (1648-1681).
The Present State of New-England. Being a Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians.
London: Thomas Parkhurst, 1677.

Comparables: Christie's, William Reese Sale, 2022 - $138,600; Christie's, 1/21/2021 - $87,500.

4to., (7 3/4" x 5 3/4"). EXCEPTIONALLY FINE, AND EXCEEDINGLY RARE, WOODCUT MAP OF NEW-ENGLAND (framed separately 12 x 15 4/8 inches), THE SECOND ISSUE WITH WHITE HILLS MIS-TRANSCRIBED AS "WINE HILLS", oriented to the south and depicting New England settlements in all three colonies, from New Haven, Connecticut to Pemaquid, Maine and as far inland as Deerfield and the White Hills. Contemporary sheep (rebacked preserving the original spine (a few surface scrapes, corners a bit worn, free endpapers renewed); preserved in a modern brown morocco backed slipcase and chemise.

Provenance: with the pen trials Richard Wiyeth on the preliminaries and last leaves, dated 1699; with the engraved bookplate of Charles Lemuel Nichols M.D. (1851-1929), prominent Worcester physician and member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Second overall edition, first edition to be published in London and with the second edition of THE EARLIEST MAP TO BE PRINTED IN AMERICA, first printed and published in America, in the same year, by John Foster of Dorchester, Massachusetts. The map's contents are based on the manuscripts of William Reed, who relied heavily on information collected by members of the Massachusetts General Court's 1652 exploratory expedition. Reed might have also drawn upon the findings of Charles II's 1664 state-sponsored expedition of New England. Foster was born in 1648, and graduated from Harvard in 1667. Though Foster initially found work as a teacher, he eventually pursued a career as an engraver. He also became Boston's first printer after acquiring Marmaduke Johnson's printing press in 1675. Though a 1664 act of the Massachusetts General Court had forbade all printing outside of Cambridge, by 1674 it had granted Foster the right to commence printing in Boston. Foster died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three. "A Map of New-England" was originally produced to accompany the text of Reverend William Hubbard's historical work, "A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England", as here. The Massachusetts General Court sanctioned the printing of Hubbard's work on March 29, 1677. Hubbard was born in Essex, England, but like Foster had graduated from Harvard. Hubbard also served as President of Harvard College and minister of the church of Ipswich. Hubbard's "Narrative ..." no doubt constituted his most significant literary accomplishment. The work was devoted to narrating the history of King Philip's War, a violent conflict between southern New England Native Americans and English colonists that spanned the years of 1675 and 1676. Thus, several of the cities featured on the map correspond directly to events narrated in Hubbard's work, and all numbers seen on the chart refer to specific pages of the author's text. This finely rendered and rare map remains integral to any study of American printing. Moreover, it depicts regions associated with one of the colonial era's most significant and destructive Anglo-Indian wars. Philip D. Burden, The Mapping of North America II: A List of Printed Maps 1671-1700 (Rickmansworth, 2007), 113-117; Barbara B. McCorkle, New England in Early Printed Maps 1513 to 1800 (Providence RI, 2001) no. 677.2; Thomas Su?rez, Shedding the Veil (Singapore, 1992), 137-139; J. C. Wheat & C. F. Brun, Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800 (Holland Press Cartographica, 1978), 144-145.