Blome, Richard

Richard Blome (1635-1705) was a London Bookseller, mapseller and publisher. Cosmographical Printer to King William III and Cosmographer to Queen Anne. His publications included "Britannia: or, a geographical description of the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland" (1673), which included a set of English county maps. Derided in his lifetime (and later - Chubb describes some of his maps as "poorly drawn"), however Ashley Baynton Williams notes "He was the first publisher in England for 40 years to prepare a new folio world atlas, the first in over sixty years to publish a new set of folio county maps, the first to seriously plan an illustrated description of London, and the first to plan a series of volumes related to the various Continents of the World". Unlike many cartographers who were bankrupted by the cost of preparing atlases, he was commercially successfully - he left enough money to his mistress for his Will to be disputed by his family.