Rare map of the Americas by Pieter van der Aa. With California as an island, showing Drake's Nova Albion. The map includes many of the discoveries in the Pacific Oceean.

Very decorative title cartouche featuring Christopher Columbus, his fleet, and many navigational instruments.

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).