“TO CONTEMPLATE, SIMULTANEOUSLY, ITS PAST AND PRESENT”: EXCEPTIONAL 1632 EDITION OF SPEED’S HISTORIE OF GREAT BRITAINE, WITH FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT AND NUMEROUS WOODCUT ENGRAVINGS, HANDSOMELY BOUND COPY FROM THE COLLECTION OF NOTED HISTORIAN THOMAS HODGKIN

SPEED, John. The Historie of Great Britaine under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. London: Printed by John Dawson, 1632. Thick folio, 18th-century polished paneled calf over wooden boards, raised bands, later red morocco spine label, marbled edges.

Revised and enlarged 1632 third edition of Speed’s monumental Historie, illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait and numerous woodcut engravings (including ten full-page charts of royal lineages), from the library of noted British historian Thomas Hodgkin.

In creating this exceptional work—"incomparably more complete than all the histories of his predecessors put together" (Lowndes, 2471)—Speed was responding to "the need of the country to fix its place in the world, to contemplate, simultaneously, its past and present" (Schama II:10). Speed's Historie vividly tells of such monarchs as William the Conqueror, Edward the Confessor, Henry II ("the founder of the English common law"), Richard the Lionhearted, Edward I ("the greatest of the Plantagenets"), Henry V (who against great odds, "conquered an empire") and the monarch whose rule "came to embody a truly national consciousness," Elizabeth I (Kings & Queens, 52, 79, 120, 198). "The first of English historians as distinguished from chroniclers and annalists," Speed also offers dramatic "accounts of the important naval engagements of early England, a mention of the discovery of America by Columbus, passages on the voyages of Drake and Frobischer, and detailed descriptions of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the expedition to Lisbon" (Rosenbach 19:728). "One of the most readable of the Elizabethan chroniclers," Speed originally intended his Historie to be a "continuation of his Theatre of the Empire, a collection of 54 maps of England and Wales. [This volume, complete in itself, thus begins with "the fifth booke" because Theatre, also listed in the Table of Contents, constitutes the first four]… For this history of England before the Tudors, Speed draws upon the same material as Holinshed" and the work of historians such as Bernard André, William Camden, Edward Hall, Richard Grafton and John Stowe (Read 318). Illustrated with engraved frontispiece portrait of Speed and numerous woodcut engravings, including ten full-page charts of royal lineages, as well as numerous woodcut engravings, historiated initials and elaborate ornamental woodcut head- and tailpieces. With Catalogue of Religious Houses (pages 1043-86, i.e., leaves 4V1-[5C6]) and Index. Occasional mispagination as issued; complete. Speed published the first edition of his Historie in 1611, revising and expanding it for the 1623 second edition and again for this edition. STC 23048.5 notes a copy with title page dated 1631, calling the present imprint "a variant."
STC 23049. Remnant of contemporary spine label affixed to front pastedown. Old armorial bookplate. Bookplate of British historian Thomas Hodgkin, author of such works as Italy and her Invaders (1870) and History of England from the Earliest Times to the Norman Conquest (1906). A founder Fellow of the British Academy, Hodgkin "made himself a professional. His work was based upon an extensive knowledge of literary and narrative sources, Italian topography and the continental scholarship of his day. He bears comparison with Gibbon, on his own terms" (DNB). Small postcard, postmarked 1890, tipped between front free endpaper and first leaf; addressed to one George Bruce in Northumberland, the verso reads, "Dear Sir: Speed embraces from 'Julius Caesar to James the 1st.' Yours Truly, A. Neale." Neale sold books and prints, specializing, according to an 1894 advertisement, "in old county views and portraits (for extra illustration)." Contemporary owner signature to title page. Occasional minor marginalia. Old notations to original preliminary blank.

Interior quite clean: small archival tape repair to recto of frontispiece; paper restoration to lower corner of [5V6], with extreme edge of frame finished in manuscript. An outstanding copy in near-fine condition, very handsomely bound, with distinguished provenance.