Collaborative Works

Abstract

Once the great voyages of discovery had opened up the New World to soldiers, merchants and missionaries, and led to the establishment of colonies, there was an increasing demand for knowledge about these exotic places. Apart from those who had a genuine need for information, ordinary people were curious to know where these places were, what sort of men inhabited them, and how they lived. Publishers were not slow to realize that the production of atlases, geographical and historical works, and travel reports, both real and imaginary, could be a very profitable enterprise. As a consequence, the market was flooded with such publications of which many were quite inaccurate. It was no doubt with the hope of benefiting from the popular demand that François L’Honoré and company i e., the Châtelain family of Amsterdam, undertook their production of the Atlas historique of which the first volume appeared in Amsterdam towards the end of 1704