Imagined Corners: Exploring the World's First Atlas

Binding, Paul

ISBN 10: 0747230404 / ISBN 13: 9780747230403

Published by Review, 2003

About this Item

hardback, quarto, 10" x 7 3/4", a near fine tightly bound copy in a near fine pictorial dust wrapper that is now protected in a non-adhesive archival film sleeve, the text is clean and unmarked, illustrated throughout in colour, 314pp.

Seller Inventory # 240463

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Imagined Corners: Exploring the World's First Atlas
• Publisher: Review
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747230404
• ISBN 13: 9780747230403
• Binding: hardback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Published in Antwerp in 1570, the Theatrum orbis terrarum did something no previous book had done—it presented the world in all its component parts, offering the chance to see our planet as a place of staggering variety and ultimate unity. It was the world’s first atlas. Brainchild of Abraham Ortelius, the Theatrum reflected the enormous vitality of the era, the prevailing zest for exploration and discovery, and the linked activities of international commerce and mapmaking. Paul Binding has immersed himself in the Antwerp that produced Ortelius and his atlas, and he draws on a mass of letters, personal documents, maps, and pictures to bring it vividly to life. A masterly volume that stands as a tribute to the human need to impose order and reason on an all-too-turbulent world.

About the Author

Paul Binding is a novelist, critic, poet, cultural historian, and a Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford.