The first true Biblical atlas. Pisgah refers to Mount Pisgah, the mountain in the Bible from which Moses saw the Promised Land for the first time.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) was a loyalist English clergyman, scholar, and writer known for his preaching and quick wit. 'A Pisgah Sight of Palestine' was Fuller's historical and geographical description of the Promised Land, written while he was under forced exile during Oliver Cromwell's rule. The text details the Puritans' attack on Fuller's moderate religious views and tolerance of unorthodox groups. It contains a full-sized Holy Land map and double-page maps of the territory belonging to the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Fuller modelled his maps after Christian van Adrichom, a 16th-century Dutch priest and surveyor, adding aesthetic touches with illustrations and decorative marks, while the maps have the cartouches, embellishments and fancies, they appear to be a genuine attempt to obtain some sort of precision. In his text Fuller had also made an effort to convey accurate information, based on the Bible and classical authors. Today we regard the Pisgah-Sight as a decorative and quaint product of a pious age, but it is significant as the first genuine attempt in English to convey, in both textual and cartographic form, the geography of the Holy Land and as such can justly be regarded as our first modern Bible atlas.

First edition, folio; erratic pagination as issued, but complete. Engraved frontispiece (soft crease, old tear repaired), title within double-ruled border with large woodcut crown above the imprint, text within ruled border with marginal column for side-notes, engraved plate of armorials by John Goddard, folding map of Palestine, 26 double-folding maps and plates, most signed by Thomas Cross, John Goddard, William Marshall, and Robert Vaughan. Eighteenth-century polished calf, covers bordered in blind, rebacked, tan morocco lettering piece, new endpapers, all edges gilt, large general map with tear repaired and some reinforcement to verso, page 235/36 with blank outer corner repaired, page 241 and 245 with small marginal repairs marginal restoration to plate at page 262, small marginal repairs to plate at page 288, wormtrack to margin of plate page 442 repaired,plate at page 18 part II laid down, plate page 72 part II with restoration to upper margin, tear to page 77 part II repaired with no loss of text but loss to page number, a very good copy.

Wing F2455; ESTC R18096; Hopkins, Fuller's Pisgah Sight of Palestine, in the Evangelical Quarterly, Vol. LIV No. 3 July-September, 1982.