Titled Title Page

Who's on top here? Sometimes a title page will clue you into the ideology of a text immediately. Here, in the first edition of John Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia (London: Michael Sparkes, 1624), we see dominion over the new lands of Virginia laid out graphically.

England's royalty are superimposed on a map of Virginia atop the page. As your eye wanders down the engraved title page, the arms of Virginia Company and the arms of the New England Company divide the map from the details of life in the new world. Across the bottom of the page there are scenes of native peoples inhabiting the newly colonized space.

Ask for McGregor 164 to see it in person in Rauner.