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THEODORE DE BRY. GERMAN FIRST EDITION OF PART IV, GRANDS VOYAGES. CARIBBEAN AREA. 1594. ----TITLE: Das vierdte Buch von der Neuwen Welt. Oder neuwe vnd gründtliche Historien, von dem Nidergängischen Indien, so von Christophoro Columbo im Jar 1492…… ----RARE: The First State of the German 1st edition of Part IV with 24 numbered engraved plates having text below, related to the Indians of Central and South America and the West Indies. QUOTE: Nothing is more rare than the first editions of these four parts [Parts I. IV in German], Bibliotheca Grenvilliana, I : 89. END QUOTE. (Church, p. 429). The Bibliotheca Grenvilliana was published in London in 1842. No complete individual copies of the German first edition of Part IV have appeared on the American market during the last two decades. To bring this up to date, there are 15 entries for de Bry s Grand Voyages America books on the ABE Book site; NONE is the German 1st edition of Part IV. Search of Rare Book Hub reveled only one entry for Part IV, a1613 issue selling for $75 in 1945. ----BACKGROUND: Theodore de Bry (1528-1598) published, inter alia, the 14-part German-language edition of his Grands Voyages. The present book is designated Part IV and covers the Caribbean Sea and some areas in Central America and South America. Part IV was printed in Frankfurt, Germany, in Latin and German editions. All German Part IV volumes had the Latin title page with the German text pasted over the Latin text at the center. There are two title pages, as called for; the second in this copy has the German paste-down text in facsimile. ----ARABIC PLATE NUMBERS: Unlike Part I (Virginia) this particular copy has NO Arabic plate numbers engraved on the Roman-numbered plates. At that time an engraving with any printed text required the operator to match the text and the image because two different printing presses had to be used. This copy of the book does not have an Arabic number engraved on the images and is designated First State. De Bry must have noticed a large number of mismatches and began to ad matching engraved numbers on the copper plates. This problem may have occurred because very few laborers could read or write at that time. This fix was too late for the early printings and some, like the present volume, were sold with no engraved numbers. Later copies of the first edition do have a partial set of crudely drawn Arabic plate numbers and are designated Second State . Both the second edition and its re-issue have full sets of engraved Arabic plate numbers and are designated Third State (Vavra, p. 79). ----TEXT: The text is by Girolamo Benzoni (b. ca.1519 d. ca.1580s) who published La Historia de Mondo Nuovo (The History of the New World) in 1565. Book One (Libro Primo) of the 1572 edition was used by de Bry in Part IV, published in 1594. The letter-press text consists of 141 pages with font commonly known as The Old German Script or fraktur . ----COLOPHON:The colophon at the bottom of page 141 reads Gedruct zu Franckfort am Mayn bey Johann Feyrabend in verlegung Dieterichs von Bry. M. D. XCIIII. ----CONDITION: Complete. Bound in old vellum. Good condition. Repairs to a few leaves were made by well-respected North Carolina conservation firm. Several flaws. Shows its age (430 years at this writing) which guaranties its authenticity. ----BIBLIOGRAPHY: ----Church, Elihu Dwight. A Catalogue of Books Relating to the discovery of North and South America. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1907. [The present book has catalog number 183] ---Vavra, Luke A. Exploration and Colonization of the New World 1492-1619: An Analysis of the German Editions [of] Theodore de Bry s Part I (Virginia) 1590 and Part IV (Caribbean) 1594 of the Grands Voyages. Self- published, 2023. Available from ABE Books. ----BRY2PARTIV.
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