A New World: England's First View of America

John White (c. 1540 - c. 1606), was an English artists who sailed with Richard Grenville in 1585 to the modern day coast of North Carolina. He made a number of watercolors of the landscape and the native peoples they encountered. These are the first and most informative illustrations of Native American society of the Eastern seaboard. They were later engraved by Theodore de Bry; all the surviving original paintings are now in the print room of the British Museum. A New World: England's First View of America is beautifully illustrated and reproduces in full the British Museum collection of drawings and watercolors. White's duties included making visual records of everything he encountered, including plants, animals, birds, and human inhabitants, especially their dress, weapons, tools, and ceremonies. The collection also includes White's watercolors of Florida and Brazilian Indians. Each work is reproduced in color and supplemented by engravings by Theodor de Bry and others. In 1590 Theodorus de Bry and his sons had published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (Rosenwald Collection Reprint Series) about the first English settlements in North America (in modern-day North Carolina). His illustrations were based on White's watercolor paintings. One interesting aspect of this fine book is seeing how significantly de Bry changed White's works; the engravings are very detailed, but lack the life of the paintings. Kim Sloan places John White in his historical, cultural, and artistic contexts. Joyce Chaplin explores how White's contemporaries viewed his work and Christian Feest assesses its accuracy as historical documentation. Ute Kuhlemann examines the role of de Bry. I found this book a wonderful introduction to America as the English of the time must have seen it. Robert C. Ross 2008

Very well done, very informative, good attention to detail.