Herman minor

A new map of the whole world with the trade winds , here as a print from the third edition of the Atlas Minor , London 1736

Herman (n) Moll (* probably 1654 ; † September 22, 1732 in London ) was a British engraver , cartographer and publisher .

Moll became known for his numerous, mostly elaborately designed maps of Europe and America. He also made tickets for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels . Moll's maps are characterized above all by the clarity in their presentation and the sometimes magnificent design of their title cartouches. In his complete works, the five-volume edition of the " Atlas Geographus " (1711-1717) and the " Atlas Minor " (1719) should be emphasized, both of which appeared in several editions.

life and work

origin

Herman Moll's exact origin is unknown. Because of the paramount importance of Dutch cartography in the 17th century and the fact that he traveled through the Netherlands in his later years , it was long assumed that he was from Amsterdam or Rotterdam . His original will, in which he bequeathed all of his possessions "in the Kingdom of Great Britain, in Germany or elsewhere" to his daughter Henderina Amelia Moll and the fact that the name "Moll" is not only spread in the Netherlands but also in northern Germany was, however, suggest rather a German origin. His biographer Dennis Reinhartz suspects that Moll came from Bremen . According to other sources, he was born in Solingen . The year 1654 is commonly assumed to be the year of birth.

First years in London

Although Moll was criticized in a review of the Thesaurus Geographicus by John Green for his incorrect representation of California as an island as early as 1717 , this error still appears in his Atlas Minor , published in 1719 (excerpt from the map A new map of the whole world ).

Moll's stay in London has been documented since 1678, but little is known about his early years there. Moll initially worked as an engraver for publishers such as Moses Pitt, Sir Jonas Moore, Greenville Collins, John Adair, Seller & Price and others. His probably first maps with the simple titles “America” and “Europe” appeared in Moore's A New Systems of the Mathematicks containing… A New Geography in 1681 and bear the imprint “H. Mol schulp ”.

Presumably Moll sold his first own cards from a sales stand that he set up in different places in London. From 1688 he had his own shop at Vanley's Court in Blackfriars, London . Between 1691 and 1710 his shop on the corner of Spring Garden and Charing Cross was before eventually to the along the River Thames running street beach changed, where he remained until his death.

In the 1690s Moll mainly worked as a copper engraver for Christopher Browne, Robert Morden and Lea, in whose business he was also involved. His first major independent work, the Thesaurus Geographicus , published in 1695, also fell during this period . The success of this work probably confirmed Moll in his decision to found his own map publisher.

The cartographer and the circumnavigator

In Moll's map of the world, published in 1697, the route of Dampier's first circumnavigation of the world is shown.

For the production of his maps, Moll relied on first-hand geographical information that was as accurate as possible. Moll benefited from his acquaintance with circumnavigator and privateer William Dampier , who returned to London in 1691 from his first circumnavigation of the world. Dampier wrote a report about the experiences of his twelve-year journey, which appeared in London in 1698 and had its fourth edition just a year later. Moll did most of the maps and illustrations for the story, titled A New Voyage round the World . While Moll's cartographic material greatly enhanced the clarity of Dampier's descriptions for the reader, Dampier's geographical knowledge was extremely important for the accuracy of Moll's maps. At a time when cartographers were dependent on the local knowledge of merchants and captains, the acquaintance of a man like Dampier was decisive for the economic success of a cartographer like Moll. The growing public interest in travel literature and the enormous success of Dampier in turn stimulated other authors such as Daniel Defoe or Jonathan Swift to write similar works. They too would later fall back on Moll's artistic abilities to illustrate their works.

First work as an independent publisher

In 1701, A System of Geography was the first map series that Moll published in his own publishing house. Although it did not contain any fundamental innovations in the representation, it helped him to establish himself as an independent cartographer. Over the years the work itself as well as individual cards from it have been copied and reissued again and again by Moll and other publishers.

A pocket globe made by Charles Price in 1716 , very similar to Moll's work.

After he had published several volumes of war maps in the following years, Moll published in 1708 with Fifty-Six new and accurate Maps of Great Britain a volume with maps of the British Isles. A year later, The Compleat Geographer and the Atlas Manuale appeared . While the Compleat Geographer was a little innovative extension of A System of Geography , the Atlas Manuale already stood out from the atlases production of the early eighteenth century due to its small format. His forty-two monochrome cards appeared without the usual text apparatus and impressed with their clarity and clarity. By dispensing with colors, Moll was able to produce his atlas much more cheaply than comparable works, and so the Atlas Manuals went through numerous new editions within a very short time.

Two years later he published his Atlas Geographus , which appeared in monthly deliveries from 1711 to 1717 and finally comprised five volumes. This contained a complete geographical representation of the world in color maps, as well as additional - not from Moll - illustrations. Moll's subscribers included booksellers and publishers from London, but also from a number of other English cities. Like A System of Geography , the Atlas Geographus was eagerly copied and imitated.

From 1710 Moll began manufacturing artfully crafted bags globes . It was each a pair of globes, with the larger, hinged celestial globe enclosing a smaller terrestrial globe. The route of Dampier's circumnavigation was also marked on the latter . These globes are very rare today and represent a great rarity among the original works of Moll (see a picture of Moll's pocket globe under web links).

Moll, Defoe and the English South Sea company

With his book A View of the Coasts, Countries, and Islands within the limits of the South Sea Company , published in 1711 , Moll intervened in a foreign policy debate that was going on at the time. At the turn of the 17th to the 18th century the interest of the English in ventures in the Pacific Ocean had greatly increased. The English merchants were looking for new investment opportunities and the favorable course of the War of the Spanish Succession raised hopes for trading options in the ports on the west coast of South America, which were previously open to the Spanish. In addition, the forays of Dampiers and other English privateers had impressively demonstrated the increasing weakness of the Spaniards. The fact that they were apparently less and less able to adequately protect their South American possessions played a prominent role in the literary processing of Dampier's travels. At the same time, Dampier painted an extremely positive picture of the wealth and economic potential of the South Seas in his travel reports. And it is precisely these descriptions that Dampier gave Moll in his foreword as the most important source for his work published in 1711.

His close contact with Daniel Defoe also had an impact on Moll's view of the South Pacific . Defoe and Moll met regularly in the " Jonathan's " coffee house, founded in 1680 , a popular meeting place for London's financial and stock market world in the City of London . Before starting his career as a novelist, Defoe had initially worked as a businessman and appeared from the 1690s as the author of various political satires and pamphlets . Between 1704 and 1713 Defoe published the three times weekly Review , a paper that dealt mainly with questions of British colonial policy. In it Defoe vehemently advocated the enforcement of English claims to rule overseas and the opening up of new markets for domestic textile manufacturers. Even if there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that the title of his later book Moll Flanders was inspired by an advertisement entitled “The History of Flanders with Moll's Map”, it does established that there was a close exchange of ideas between Defoe and Moll - especially on questions of British colonial policy.

A New & Exact Map of the Coast, Countries and Islands within ye Limits of ye South Sea Company , London 1711, here in a reprint from 1720

Moll's book contained the map A New & Exact Map of the Coast, Countries and Islands within ye Limits of ye South Sea Company , the dedication cartouche with the text "To the Rt. Hon.ble Robert Earl of Oxford and Mortimer & c ..." . It meant Robert Harley , the founder of the South Sea Company , as its secretary Daniel Defoe worked among other things. This London South Sea company had received exclusive rights to trade with Spanish America in 1710 in anticipation of the end of the war - which actually did not take place until 1713 - but after only ten years of existence it dissolved in the so-called " South Sea Bubble ".

Moll's map shows the trading company's sphere of influence in the South Pacific. A special focus is on the ports on the South American west coast, hundreds of which are entered on the map. Important places like Guayaquil are also shown in more detail on one of the twelve inset maps on the edge of the sheet. The representation of the Juan Fernández Islands occupies a prominent place in one of these inset maps. This was the place where Alexander Selkirk , the model for Defoe's fictional character Robinson Crusoe , was abandoned by one of the captains of Dampier's expedition in 1704 and only freed again in 1709.

With maps like this one, Moll had just as strong an influence on the public debate as the novelists Defoe or Swift - and this above all because his maps also gave illiterate people an idea of ​​the spaces depicted. However, he had a very concrete influence on Defoe's South America plans through a mistake in the representation of South America . One of Defoe's ideas was the establishment of a trading base in Patagonia , from which a trade connection with Chile should be established. Defoe, however, had only very imprecise ideas about the geography of the Andes and, on the basis of Moll's maps, assumed that they could be overcome without any problems via passes. While Defoe's plans burst with the South Sea Bubble at the latest , Moll's map A New & Exact Map of the Coast, Countries and Islands within ye Limits of ye South Sea Company was reprinted in later editions of his work The World Described after his death .

The World Described and Atlas Minor

Excerpt from the so-called Beaver Map

In 1715, Moll's The World Described , a collection of thirty large, double-sided cards, was published which saw numerous reprints up to 1754. The cards, in which Moll's artistry as a copperplate engraver is particularly evident, were initially sold individually and later bound in the form of an atlas . The print was a joint venture between Moll and a number of other publishers.

The tape contained two of the most famous card Molls, A new and exact map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain and John Lord Sommers This map of North America , because of their eye-catching and elaborate Insetdarstellungen as Beaver Map and as Codfish Map were known .

The Beaver Map shows a scene of beavers building dams in front of Niagara Falls , which did not originally come from Moll himself, but from a little-known map by Nicolas de Fer from 1698. Nevertheless, Moll's map contributed to the establishment of the beaver as a symbol for its popularity the North American colonies.

Extract from the so-called Codfish Map

Moll's Codfish Map shows a scene from the cod fishing off Newfoundland in its title cartouche . Cod fishing in the Newfoundland Banks has been an important economic factor for the European colonial powers since the beginning of the 16th century . At the time the map was made, the battle for fishing rights was one of the central points of contention in North American policy between France and England. With his presentation of the processing of freshly caught cod for shipment to Europe, Moll emphasized the importance of this economic sector for his home country England.

In addition to selecting the scenes for the title cartouches and side maps , Moll also tried again and again to convey his message of the importance of the colonial expansion of England by means of the inscription on the maps. In the Codfish Map he labeled the Atlantic Ocean as the "Sea of ​​the British Empire", thereby underlining the English claims to fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland. In a map of the West Indies from the same volume, he wrote the words "Spanish Fort Deserted" and "Good Ground" in the southwest corner of Carolina. On many of his North America maps - including the Beaver Map - he drew roads in the vicinity of important ports in particular, because he knew that adequate infrastructure was of great importance for further English expansion.

Title copper of the third edition of the Atlas Minor from 1736 (excerpt)

In 1719 Moll published the first of a large number of editions of his Atlas Minor . This smaller atlas managed without the usual lengthy text section and showed current representations of all regions of the world known up to that point. Here, too, Moll continued his colonial advertising in the area of ​​North America maps. He labeled the map A Plan of Port Royal harbor in Carolina with the text:

Port Royal River lies 20 Leagues from Ashley River SW it has a bold Entrance 19 or 20 Foot at Low Water, the Harbor is large, safe and commodious and runs into ye best Country in Carolina. Here ye Air is always clear and Agreeable to European Constitutions.

What Moll deliberately kept silent about was the fact that the mortality of settlers in the humid and swampy south-west of South Carolina was almost as high in his day as on the British overseas possessions in the Caribbean . He played down the dangers posed by Indians by adding decorative portraits of the 'good and savages' to his lavishly designed title cartouches and frames. In his caption on the Beaver Map he mentioned the Iroquois as "good friends of the English" in the fight against the French, but failed to mention that the French also made use of such "good friends", only from other tribes.

Beyond all political orientation, Moll's maps were style-defining during his lifetime and far beyond and are still among the most aesthetically sophisticated copperplate engravings in the history of cartography. Moll's Atlas Minor remained one of the most important map series of the 18th century until its last edition in 1781.

"My worthy friend, Mr. Herman Moll" - Gulliver's Travels

Six years before Moll's death, Jonathan Swift published his novel Lemuel Gulliver's travels into several remote nations of the world ( Gulliver's travels ). The work, which is now incorrectly considered a children's book because two of its episodes were rewritten as children's stories, is in reality a vicious, socially critical satire and, in addition to questions about politics, philosophy and science, also dealt with the British expansionist efforts in the first third of the 18th century . Two people from Swift's London circle of acquaintances are mentioned by name: the circumnavigator William Dampier (who is introduced into history by Swift as Gulliver's cousin) and the map maker Herman Moll.

Dampier's book A New Voyage round the World , published some thirty years earlier - and directly named by Swift - provided the ideal template for Gulliver's travelogue. In doing so, Swift caricatured the English reading public's addiction to ever new descriptions of distant countries, but used them to his own economic advantage. And at the same time he expanded Gulliver's travels with that indispensable supplement that a travelogue of the time could hardly do without: the maps of Herman Moll.

Map of Lilliput

Moll itself is mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Part Four, in a passage describing Gulliver's arrival in New Holland, Australia:

I lay all night in my canoe; and repeating my voyage early in the morning, I arrived in seven hours to the south-east point of New Holland. This confirmed me in the opinion I have long entertained, that the maps and charts place this country at least three degrees more to the east than it really is; which thought I communicated many years ago to my worthy friend, Mr. Herman Moll, and gave him my reasons for it, although he has rather chosen to follow other authors.

I stayed in my canoe all night; then I continued my journey in the morning, and after seven hours I reached the southeastern tip of New Holland. Everything confirmed the opinion I had previously held that the geographical maps show this country at least three degrees too far to the east. Several years ago I informed my worthy friend, Hermann Moll, about this, and told him the reasons why I believe my thoughts to be true. However, he preferred to follow other writers' indications.

Although Swift at this point impaled the persistence of his dear friend Mr. Herman Moll in sticking to facts that had already been refuted, in his other representation of geographical conditions he largely followed his world map A new map of the whole world with the trade winds, first published in 1719 (see illustration) above). In particular, the outlines of Japan and the names of the places show that Moll's drawings served as the basis for Swift's descriptions.

The maps made by Moll especially for Gulliver's Travels increased the clarity of the novel - just as with the illustrations made for Defoe's Robinson Crusoe as early as 1719 - and made a significant contribution to the success of the work. Since the first edition of the book, Moll's maps have also been reproduced many times and, curiously, as Frederick Bracher aptly stated, are among the most widespread maps Moll has ever drawn.

The last decade

Portrait of Hermann Molls by his friend, the antiquarian William Stukeley , from 1723

In the last decade of his life, Moll continued his cartographic work mainly with the help of representations of the British Isles. An atlas published in 1724 with maps of England and Wales was followed by an atlas with maps of Scotland in 1725 and a volume with representations of Ireland in 1728. In addition, as early as 1721 he created a historical atlas for school use with Thirty two new and accurate Maps of the Geography of the Ancients . A rarity among his works today is the volume Roads of Europe , which appeared in the year of his death and probably for this reason did not experience a high circulation.

The exact circumstances of his death are in the dark. The only surviving portrait of Moll, made by his close friend William Stukeley from 1723, shows him with a clear, attentive look at the age of almost 70.

Even in the last decade of Moll's life, but especially after his death, his maps were distributed in an increasing number of reprints and pirated prints . Even the errors they contained, such as the portrayal of California as an island, were never corrected. The demand for Moll's copperplate engravings, which continues to this day, gives a rough idea of ​​his lasting popularity. Most recently, his Map of the Island of Bermuda from 1709 appeared on a Bermuda stamp issued in 1987 . Moll's maps always reflect a specific worldview, but this has not done anything to his fame.

Works (selection)

• Thesaurus Geographicus (1695)
• A System of Geography (1701)
• A History of the English Wars (1705)
• The History of the Republick of Holland (1705)
• A Description of all the Seats of the present Wars of Europe (1707)
• Fifty-Six new and accurate Maps of Great Britain (1708)
• The Compleat Geographer (1709)
• Atlas manuals (1709)
• A View of the Coasts, Countries, and Islands within the limits of the South-Sea-Company (1711)
• Atlas Geographus (1711-1717)
• The World Described (1715)
• Atlas Minor (1719)
• Thirty two new and accurate Maps of the Geography of the Ancients (1721)
• A Set of fifty New and Correct Maps of England and Wales (1724)
• A Set of thirty-six New and Correct Maps of Scotland (1725)
• A Set of twenty New Maps of Ireland (1728)
• Roads of Europe (1732)

literature

• Dennis Reinhartz: The cartographer and the literati - Herman Moll and his intellectual circle , Lewiston NY 1997, ISBN 0-7734-8604-6 .
• Sarah Tyack: London Map-Sellers 1660-1720 , Tring 1978, ISBN 0-906430-00-3 .
• Frederick Bracher: The Maps in Gulliver's Travels , in: Huntington Library Quarterly 8 (1944/45), ISSN  0018-7895 , pp. 59-74.

Web links

Commons : Herman Moll  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Jan Rychtář: Map collection Moll , website in German, English and Czech with the fully digitized collection including the handwritten catalogs by Bernhard Paul Moll from the middle of the 18th century, with short keywording and options for superimposing historical and current map material on the page mapy.mzk.cz , last accessed on March 29, 2014
• Terrestrial and celestial pocket globe (GLB0197) - Photo of a pocket globe made by Moll in 1719 from the collection of the National Maritime Museum , London.
• Publications by and about Herman Moll in VD 17 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Reinhartz, The cartographer and the literati , pp. 12-14.
2. ↑ The Darien Project - Scotland's End as a Colonial Power . ScotlandPortal , archived from the original on February 21, 2014 ; accessed on January 11, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).  
3. ^ Bracher, The Maps in Gulliver's Travels , pp. 63-64.

This version was added to the list of excellent articles on October 14, 2005 .