Constitutes the Edwards reprint of the Elenchus of Theodor de Bry's Great voyages, printed in fourteen parts, in Latin, German, French, and English, in Frankfurt am Main, Oppenheim, and Hanau from 1590-1644, and the Elenchus, an outline of the thirteen Latin parts, published by Matthias Merian in Frankfurt am Main in 1634.

This work has been identified as the Edwards reprint of the Elenchus of the Great voyages by Church.

James Edwards was one of a family of bookbinders and printers whose predecessors worked in Halifax, West Yorkshire; James Edwards worked in London and was known as Edwards of Halifax. It is possible that he is the "Edwards" to which Church refers. Cf. Five centuries of English bookbinding, 1978.

Caption title on p. [11] reads: Elenchvs singvlarvm sectionvm, sev partivm totivs operis Americani: cum indice capitum rerumq[ue] praecipuarum, & maximè memorabilium, in istis XIII. partibus contentarum.

The Elenchus was originally published in 1634 by Merian, as a collective title and table of contents of the Great Voyages. He placed it at the beginning of the third edition of Hariot's Virginia, or part I, which is its true position, though it is generally found attached to the second edition of that part. As it contains a general preface and a table to the whole work, its chief value consists in the fact that it gives a comprehensive view of the contents of the collection and indicates the order in which it should be read. The Elenchus, having become very rare, even in the eighteenth century, two reprints were made, one in England, by Edwards, of nine folios; the other in France by De Bure, of ten folios. Neither of these contained the engraved title page which was not reproduced for them. The original edition may be distinguished from the reprints by the tail piece at the bottom of p. [11], which is a typographical ornament with a mask. In the De Bure reprint this ornament represents flowers; while in the Edwards reprint it is a sun in the center. Cf. Church.

Signatures: A⁶ (-A1) (A6 verso blank) B⁴ (horizontal chain lines)

Engraved head and tail pieces; initials.

Church, E.D. Discovery, 175.

JCB Lib. cat., pre-1675, I: p. 382.

Alden, J.E. European Americana, 634/35.