Adrian Tinniswood

Roads Less Travelled

The Nine Lives of John Ogilby: Britain’s Master Map Maker and His Secrets

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Historians of Restoration London know John Ogilby (c 1600–1676) for the marvellous post-Fire survey of the capital that he produced with his step-grandson, William Morgan, which was published in 1677; or as the choreographer of the celebrations accompanying Charles II’s coronation, of which the Earl of Clarendon said, ‘the whole Show was the most glorious … that had ever been seen in England’. Literary historians remember Ogilby for the series of translations of Virgil and Homer he produced in the 1650s and 1660s, lavish works that earned unwarranted sneers from later translators, including Dryden and Pope. 

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