Very decorative map of Cuba and Jamaica. With portrait medallion of Christopher Columbus.

Records show that van der Aa, born in Leiden in 1659, made an early start in life by being apprenticed to a bookseller at the age of nine and starting his own in business as a book publisher by the time he was twenty-three.

During the following fifty years he published an enormous amount of material including atlases and illustrated works in every shape and size, two of them consisting of no less than 27 and 28 volumes containing over 3,000 maps and plates.

(Moreland & Bannister).