The third available map of the county of Essex, probably based on Christopher Saxton's map of 1579, but here reduced by William Kip for Camden’s 1637 edition of the “Britannia.”

William Camden first published his venerable geo-historical
compendium of Great Britain and Ireland, “Britannia” in 1586 and it proved
extremely popular. By 1589, encouraged by the success of Christopher Saxton’s
atlas, Camden began preparations to illustrate his work with a
set of county maps. Despite this lengthy lead time, the first time the work
contained a set of county maps was in the 1607 sixth edition of the work. The
maps injected a new lease of life into the publication and it became such a library staple that further editions were issued into the early 19th century, albeit
with different maps.

The Saxton Kip or Saxton Hole maps, as they are generally
known, provide an almost unique opportunity for the collector to acquire either
the first available or second available map of a particular English county.
These maps were only present in the sixth, seventh and eighth edition of the
Britannia published 1607, 1610 and 1637 before the maps were revised and
updated by other cartographers. They were usually issued in black and white but
on very rare occasions, bespoke colouring was added at the time of publishing.

This is one of the maps in the Britannia which does not cite
a source although Kip is still noted as the engraver. Saxton did produce a map
of Essex 1579 and there it was also one of the maps which were part of the
mysterious incomplete set of twelve county maps which for centuries were
attributed only as “Anonymous” but are now attributed to William Smith. The
first state of the Smith maps of 1602-3 are not commercially available but
later editions from the mid-17th century occasionally appear on the
market. It is possible that Camden used a combination of both the Smith and
Saxton maps as a source, hence his reluctance to cite just Saxton as his
source.

The example offered here is from the 1637 edition and is
distinguished by the addition of beautiful original colour contemporaneous to
time of publishing. [ESSEX1285]