I. WILLIAM HOLE 1622

This is a map of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and part of Cambridgeshire, showing only the courses of the rivers and a few towns, and decorated with allegorical figures, illustrating poems by Michael Drayton. There is no title to the map but the three county names BEDFORDESHIRE, HUNTINGDONSHIRE and PARTE OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE are engraved on the face of the map: no county boundaries are shown. The first two editions of Poly-Olbion ([1612] and 1613) did not contain this map, which appeared in the second part of the work, containing songs 19-30, first published in 1622. The engraved title page of Poly- Olbion bears the signature of William Hole and he probably also engraved the maps.

Size: 24.4 x 30.8 cms.

The page number 27 appears top right.

A chorographicall description of all the tracts, rivers mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of Great Britaine… Digested into a poem by

Michael Drayton, Esquire….

London, John Marriott, John Grismand and Thomas Dewe, 1622. BL

II. JOHN OGILBY 1675

Strip road-maps of the main routes in England and Wales. Listed here are the plates of roads passing through Bedfordshire, with notes of the routes shown. On each plate the title, top centre, ends with the signature By JOHN OGILBY Esqr. His Maties Cosmographer (the capitals and punctuation vary) and the royal arms are engraved below. The size of the engraved area varies in height from 30.8 to 34.6 cms and in width from 41.4 to 44.7 cms.

Reduced versions of these maps were subsequently engraved by Thomas Gardner and W. Caston (1719), John Senex (1719) and Emanuel Bowen (1720, see no 21); a further reduced series was published in France in 1759.