A Description of the Island of Jamaica | 1672, rare first edition with notable content on piracy and early shipwrecks.

A rare and important early work on the English colonies in America, with notable content on piracy and early shipwrecks.

While the title suggests a primary focus on Jamaica, Blome’s work serves as a broad promotional tract for English colonial expansion, with dedicated sections on Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, and New England. It provides one of the earliest published descriptions of these territories and was compiled with the assistance of Sir Thomas Lynch, Governor of Jamaica, and Colonel Thomas Modyford, a major landowner on the island.

The book offers a particularly vivid account of Jamaica’s role as a base for privateers and freebooters in the late 17th century. Blome estimates that "at the least 3000 lusty and stout Fighting Men" (p. 42) operated from the island, frequently attacking Spanish ships. He notes that once the English secured control, many settlers turned to privateering to defend the colony and harass Spanish shipping (p. 49). By 1672, Jamaica had become "capable of itself to carry on a War against the Spaniards … having already about 20 or 30 Sayl of Privateers" (p. 60). Figures such as Henry Morgan, Calico Jack, and Charles Vane later cemented the island’s reputation as a pirate stronghold.

Blome also provides early accounts of shipwrecks in the Caribbean and along the North American coast, recording the perils of colonial-era sea travel. His descriptions illustrate the dangers faced by settlers, traders, and privateers navigating these waters, adding another dimension to this important historical work.

The book was first advertised in the London Gazette in July 1672 but was delayed until Easter 1673. Three issues of the first edition exist, each with different imprints (T. Milbourn alone; T. Milbourn & J. Williams; and T. Milbourn, for R. Clavell), the present example being the first state of the first edition.

Original calf leather binding, showing expected wear. The front free endpaper and title page are loose, but otherwise intact. This copy does not feature the important maps, which are present in only a small number of surviving examples. Due to this, it is priced at £5,000, whereas a complete copy with maps would command closer to £20,000.

This book is exceedingly rare, with only a handful of known surviving copies. A key 17th-century colonial tract, notable for its descriptions of English America, early Carolina, and New York—then recently taken from the Dutch—as well as its contemporary account of Jamaica's privateering culture and the perils of transatlantic travel.

London: Printed by T. Milbourn, 1672. First edition.