A Curious Map of some late Discoveries in the Terra Australis comprehending New Guinea & New Britain

This wonderful, rarely seen small map was published in ‘The Grand Magazine of Magazines. or Universal Register‘ in 1759 by T. Kinnersley. 

The accompanying text page quotes Woodes Rogers, captain of the privateering expedition who, on the Duke, with William Dampier as sailing master, had rescued Alexander Selkirk (apparently the inspiration for ‘Robinson Crusoe’). Rogers said that New Britain Island would make a good trading base for the East India trade, but the accompanying text accuses the Dutch of inaccuracy in their maps of the region in an attempt to foil other countries’ enterprises. Set up in 1750 in competition with the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’, the Grand Magazine was a public register of literature and amusement. It contained biographical sketches, history, travel writing, natural history, poetry, current events, lists of marriages, births, deaths, and promotions, book reviews, and a table of stock prices. It promoted itself as being a “Grand magazine of universal intelligence, and monthly chronicle of our own times..”. It did not achieve a widespread circulation however, and closed ten years later, in 1760. It was a pocket size publication, mostly written by David Henry, and was liberally illustrated by numerous engravers.