Herman Moll (c. 1654-1732) was one of the most important London mapmakers in the first half of the eighteenth century. Moll was probably born in Bremen, Germany, around 1654. He moved to London to escape the Scanian Wars. His earliest work was as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas, a failed work which landed Pitt in debtor's prison. Moll also engraved for Sir Jonas Moore, Grenville Collins, John Adair, and the Seller & Price firm. He published his first original maps in the early 1680s and had set up his own shop by the 1690s.
Moll's work quickly helped him become a member of a group which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill, where speculators met to trade stock. Moll's circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and William Hacke. From these contacts, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was included in his maps.
Over the course of his career, he published dozens of geographies, atlases, and histories, not to mention numerous sheet maps. His most famous works are Atlas Geographus, a monthly magazine that ran from 1708 to 1717, and The World Described (1715-54). He also frequently made maps for books, including those of Dampier’s publications and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Moll died in 1732. It is likely that his plates passed to another contemporary, Thomas Bowles, after this death.
![Barbary and Bildulgerid. [on sheet with:] Egypt and Barca &c.](/map/small/70916.jpg)
Antique engraved map with images of northwest Africa on top and Egypt on the bottom, with a further inset of Malta above the bottom title block. The map was published in Herman Moll's 1701 System of Geography. It is reasonably scarce, this being the...
Scarce map of Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Usbeck, etc. The map covers the region from the Caspian Sea to the Great Wall of China. The region is mostly the domain of the Kalmyk people with various areas denoted for Black Kalmucks, Fugitive Kalmucks,...
Detailed map of the islands from Eastern Brunei to Timor and part of New Guinea, centered on the Moluccas.
Detailed map of South East Asia and the Philippines, with explanatory text. First published in 1695, this map is from one of the subsequent editions of Abell Swall's and Tim Child's Thesaurus Geographicus issued in 1700, 1701 and 1709.
Fine map of Batavia (Jakarta) and its environs, which appeared in "A Collection of Voyages and Travels" by Churchill. The map provides a decorative and detailed look at the area around Jakarta, noting Fort Northerwick, Anke, Riswick Fort, Five Anguler...
Beautiful 18th-century British map of Persia, published by Herman Moll in London, circa 1740. The Persian Gulf is referred to as the "Gulf of Bassora" and much of the Emirati, Qatari, and Saudi Gulf Coast described as "Part of Persia". Persian...
Interesting early 18th Century map of a part of the Southwest Coast of Africa. Includes compass rose.
A nice example of Herman Moll's map of the island of St. Helena.
A fine example of Moll's map of the polar regions, known and unknown. The western part of North America is conspicuously absent, as is northeast Asia. A lengthy narrative note along the bottom describes the best contemporary knowledge. The body of...
