Commentarioli Britannicae Descriptionis Fragmentum by LLWYD Humphrey [or Lhuyd] 1527-1568 - 1572

Coloniae: Ioannem Birckmannum, 1572. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Near Fine. 16mo - over 5¾ - 6¾" tall. (A Fragment of a Little Commentary on the Description of Britain). 1572, first edition, near fine in attractive 20c, full black crushed morocco (by WH Smith), gilt edge tooling. Spine, raised bands, gilt tooling & titles. Internally, [8] ff, 79 [ie 78), 28 blank leaves, woodcut printers device on title, small stain in upper margin on first few leaves, modern endpapers, without the two final blank leaves, binders stamp to epd, gilt tooled turn-ins, text block edges reddened. (140*85 mm). (Adams L1378; Rees 3313. USTC 6235). First edition of this history of Britain, (published posthumously), which was translated into English as The Breviary of Britayne a year later by Thomas Twyne. The work contains much on the Celtic peoples of Britain during and after the Roman occupation, makes mention of Camelot on f.18v, and ends with a short Welsh vocabulary. Llwyd was a friend of Abraham Ortelius (he had prepared two maps to be included in his atlas), and he prefixes the work with a farewell letter to the cartographer, dated from Denbigh 30 August 1568.