Inset map showing bottom centre titled The Draught Shews the several Countries or People lying most remote from the Holy Land and mentioned in the Old Testament.
Published in Wells’ A New Sett of Maps of Antient and Present Geography the maps were issued separately and over time by ‘subscription’. All 22 maps in the series were dedicated to the young and sickly Duke of Gloucester, who as an eleven year-old attended Oxford. He died in July 1700 just after Williamsburg and Virginia had been named for him. The plates were prepared by some of the most accomplished engravers in Oxford including Michael Burghers, who worked for Moses Pitt on his atlas; R Spofforth, Sutton Nicholls, Edward Smith, Benjamin Cole and John Moxon.
Edward Wells (1667 – 1727) an Oxford scholar and clergyman, had a ‘turbulent career in the ministry, being involved in many controversies of the time’ (Burden). A prolific writer, he translated several religious and secular works from Latin and Greek into English. He also wrote severe scientific works on astronomy, chronology, arithmetic and geometry. In addition to a number of religious polemics, Edward Wells published a series of descriptive geographies, “largely cribbed from other sources, but widely recommended at schools and universities in the period. His Treatise of Antient and Present Geography (1701; and four further editions) was a popular gazetteer intended for students reading classics, while his History of the New Testament (1708) and the companion Historical Geography of the Old Testament (1711-12) plagiarized travellers to the Near East and Biblical scholars to give a description of the Holy Land, but also attacked Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism in the passing” (Mayhew for DNB)
