Period

18th Century

Featured Items

Detail of a printed book shows a full-page illustration of a man smoking while seated and another man throwing water on him. Text in English on the opposite page.

Little truths better than great fables

William Darton
1794
Engraved fold-out map shows Greenland spelled "Grœnland" and other text in German.

Historie von Grönland

David Cranz
1765-1770
The spine and back cover of Lettre d'une Peruvienne shows deteriorated calf binding.

Lettres d'une Peruvienne

Françoise de Graffigny
1748
Detail of an engraved city plan of Queretaro shows numbered blocks in the city layout.

Ordenanza que para la division de la m. noble y leal ciudad de Santiago de Queretaro en cuarteles menores, creacion de alcaldes de ellos, y reglas para su gobierno.

1796
Detail of an engraved, hand colored full-page illustration shows a yam.

A collection of exotics, from the Island of Antigua

Lydia Byam
1797
Detail of a printed book shows title page with English text "The English Pilot. The Fourth Book describing the West India Navigation, from Hudson's Bay to the River Amazones" in red ink.

The English pilot, Book 4

William Fisher; John Thornton
1745
Detail of a printed book shows text in French.

Lettre aux Espagnols-Américains

Juan Pablo Vizcardo y Guzman
1799
Detail of a colored manuscript map shows text in Spanish over Hispaniola reading "Isla de Sto. Domingo" with other smaller labels.

Descripcion de las costas de tierra firme de la America Septentrional

Antonio de Matos
1740

Related

Image from: Tovar Codex-El modo de baylar de los Mexicanos. 17a y última del primer tratado. [Juan de Tovar 1585]. Original at the John Carter Brown Library.
Workshop

Visual Thinking in the Archive: Mesoamerican Codices at the JCB

printed text in Hebrew

Jews and the Americas: 165 Years of Collecting at the JCB

Fall 2010 - Winter 2011
printed text in Spanish

The Age of Spanish American Revolutions: Spanish South America

Spring - Fall 2011
Europeans and Africans at the shore

Voyage to the Islands: Hans Sloane, Slavery, and Scientific Travel in the Caribbean

Spring - Summer 2012
handwriting sample with scrawls in the shape of a bird

Mind Your Business: Records of Early American Commerce at the John Carter Brown Library

Fall 2012
sixteenth-century map showing Atlantic coasts

The Florida Story: Reconnaissance and Rivalry on a Maritime Periphery

Winter 2013
hand-colored image depicting a scene in Asia

America and the China Trades, 1750-1850

Fall 2010
image of an opened book showing printed text on one page and an image of a man smoking tobacco on the opposite page

New World, New Eyes: America in Early Children's Books

Fall 2013

See Also

Spanish

American Revolutions