Folio, (342 x 241 mm). Vol. 1, parts 1-8, letters 1-217; with volume title page, and separate title pages for each of the eight parts: [20], [12],116; [8],116; [12],116; [12],116; [12],120; [12], 110, [2]; [12],124; [12],64,[64] pages plus 9 maps (8 folding) and 1 plate: engraved full standing portrait of Giovanni Battista Messari (1673-1723), missionary work in the Kingdom of Tunkin. With imprint on main title page dated 1726 & added engraved title page present: Der neue Welt-Bott mit allerhand Nachrichten deren Missionarien Soc. Jesu'; Vol. 2 (in two parts, bound in one), parts 9-16, letters 218-377; with volume title page, and separate title pages for each of the eight parts: [8],[12],96; [10],106; [12],100; [8],100; [8],97,[3]; [14],94 (misnumbered 65); [12],99; [8],74,[46] pages plus 10 maps (9 folding), 4 plates and numerous tables (several folding). With imprint dated 1729 (i.e. 2nd ed. of vol. 2) & added engraved title page present; Vol. 3, parts 17-24, letters 378-520; with volume title page, and additional separate title pages: [8],[8],126,[2];[8],159; [8],151;[4],153 [p. 153 on inserted sheet, containing letter no. 428, not described by Streit],40,[2]; [12],176; 243 pages plus 3 folding maps and 2 plates; Vol. 4 (first part of vol. 4), parts 25-28, letters 521-555; with volume title page, and additional title pages: [12],121;[8],116;[8],127;[4],134 pages plus 3 folding maps and 1 folding plate. Vol. 5 (i.e. second part of vol. 4), parts 29-32, letters 556-640; with volume title page and additional title pages: [10],154;[8],135;[8],119;[8],130,[14] pages plus 1 folding map, 1 plate, and 1 folding table. 18th century blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards.

Der Neue Welt-Bott is partly a German version of the celebrated Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, though it is far more than a translation of that famous collection, incorporating additional material from manuscript sources and preserving reports omitted from, or unavailable to, the French compilers. The half-title of Volume I reads Der Neue Welt-Bolt Mit allerhand Nachrichten Dern Missionariorum Soc. Jesu., hence bibliographers routinely refer to the collection as Der Neue Welt-Bott rather than by the longer title on the main title page.

The first three volumes of the Neue Welt-Bott - comprising parts 1-24 - were issued during Stöcklein's lifetime. After his death, other Jesuits continued the publication: Peter Probst brought out parts 25 to 28 in 1748, Francis Keller issued parts 29 to 36 in 1755-58, and Francis Xavier Socher completed the work by 1761, apparently intending to reach through part 40, though part 38 appears to be last known part.

This highly valuable collection of missionary reports relating to America, etc., is mostly taken from unpublished manuscripts. Only the smaller part has been translated from the "Lettres Edifiantes" - Sabin (52376).

Der Neue Welt-Bott assembles firsthand reports from Jesuit missionaries across the globe, spanning the East Indies; North and South America; Europe and the wider Mediterranean world (including Turkey); and overseas regions such as Africa, China, Korea, Japan, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Philippines. Among the work’s most striking features are its maps and plates: a vital early map of the Philippines based on Murillo Velarde (Vol. 4, part 1, see below for detailed discussion); a map depicting Nagasaki (vol. 1, part 5, no. 98); Eusebio Kino’s celebrated engraved map, “Via terrestris in Californiam” (vol. 1, part 2, no. 54), a landmark image associated with Kino’s argument that California was not an island, a misconception that had persisted for nearly a century. Other notable cartographic features include a highly detailed Jesuit map showing the Amazon’s source in the Andes (part 5, no. 110), and a map of Formosa (part 6, no. 34) derived from earlier models, with a clearly articulated western coastline but an only conjectural eastern shore.

For a detailed breakdown of the contents of each volume see Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum, vol. 1 (entries 838, 845, 872, 942, 946). The appendix of Vol. 2 (pp. 17-102) of the first edition of Becker, Bibliotheque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, also presents the contents (through part 36).

Among the most important sources for the history of missions in the eighteenth century is the collection of mission letters and reports compiled by Fr. (P.) Stöcklein and known under the title “Welt-Bott” (“World Messenger”). With the exception of 2-3 reports, all the writers belong to the Jesuit Order. The value of this collection lies in the fact that Fr. Stöcklein published a large number of letters written by German missionaries. - Streit.

Publication History

In an extensive scholarly assessment Galaxis Borja Gonzalez styles Joseph Stöcklein’s Der Neue Welt-Bottas a landmark publication: the first periodical to present writings by German overseas missionaries “from all over the known world” in German and expressly for a German readership. Borja Gonzalez describes the complete work as 40 parts with 812 letters, though most bibliographers (Streit, Sabin, etc.) describe 38 parts only. Stöcklein’s achievement, according to Borja, lay not only in gathering first-hand reports by Germans abroad, but in issuing them in a regular, uniform serial format: a vast compilation of hundreds of individual reports compiled into five volumes and printed between 1726 and 1761. While predominantly composed of missionary letters, the Neue Welt-Bott also incorporated maps, images, commentaries, royal letters, and other informational materials, many transmitted through Jesuit communication channels as well as kinship and friendship networks, with some contributions increasingly written with publication in mind; the earliest volumes also drew on translations from the French Jesuit Lettres édifiantes et curieuses. Notably, Borja argues that the work’s influence has been muted in later scholarship, owing both to a Protestant-centered historiographical optic that marginalized Catholic production and to book historians’ tendency to overlook Jesuit missionary writing as a source for the construction of social and colonial hierarchies.

Stöcklein edited and assembled the journal in Graz, while printing was executed in Augsburg, a logistical separation mitigated by his partnership with the Veith printer dynasty, whose commercial reach helped market the serial across the Empire and whose city’s transcontinental ties helped position the Neue Welt-Bott within the symbolic and practical making of colonial order. Stöcklein’s insistence on a standardized design imposed coherence on a sprawling corpus of more than 4,500 folio pages, easing the binder’s task of organizing parts into volumes while also turning the periodical into a recognizable commodity for readers and buyers. Finally, he arranged materials not by colonies or Jesuit provinces, but by semi geographically “clustered” sequences; East Asia dominates (256), followed by the Americas (203), India (112), the Pacific Islands (65), and a substantial body from the Near East and adjacent regions (164). The American letters often reveal both sharp critiques of Spanish colonial actors and the simultaneous expression of demeaning stereotypes of Indigenous peoples as “lazy,” “wild,” and “uninhibited,” even as they were framed as potentially educable.

The First Map of the Philippines Based on the Murillo Velarde Map:

The map of the Philippines is a highlight of the set. Based on the Murillo Velarde map and representing one of the earliest separate modern maps of the islands, the work substantially updates the cartography of the islands. Numerous cities, towns, ports, and reefs are shown throughout, an incredibly detailed look at the islands for the time. In the southern tip of Mindanao, a volcano erupts. The map is complemented by the lengthy 116-page Jesuit report on the island that describes the history and geography of the islands.

The present edition of the map is dated 1734 in the cartouche, but was published in 1748, apparently being the first reissue of the 1734 Murillo Velarde map, originally published in Manila. Notably, the small inset plan of Manila in the upper left is a reduction of the lower right vignette in the Velarde map. The map also appears to take a number of its decorative elements directly from the Murillo Velarde: the charming cartouche is conceived as a small, low-lying islet that “floats” within the sea of the map, its sandy surface edged by a scalloped shoreline and dotted with tufts of coastal plants. A large crocodile crawls prominently across the foreground, signaling the archipelago’s exotic fauna. Two standing figures animate the scene and literally support the inscription: at left, a nearly nude islander in a woven loincloth strides forward in an energetic pose, grasping the title-scroll; at right, a second figure wearing a loose tunic and a broad, conical hat stands calmly with a curved sword at his side, holding the opposite edge of the cartouche. Above the inscription, two birds perch face-to-face on the top rail of the tablet, and a large parasol or sunshade hovers overhead like a canopy.

The mapping was executed by Jesuit missionaries, and, from the present map, it is apparent that Jesuits residing in Europe were among the first to incorporate this geography into published maps. In the Velarde map and the Neuen Welt-Bott edition, we see a serious increase in the density of information in the archipelago, a rectification of the shape of many of the islands, and early mappings of Manila.

The timing of this map and its publication was oddly fortuitous, for the Jesuits were expelled from the Philippines in 1768. However, their mapping of the island would endure long past their expulsion, influencing maps throughout the 18th century.

Quirino suggests map was first reproduced by Dalrymple in his Charts in London 1744 (Quirino, page 59), the same year as Murillo published his reduced Manilla edition, but Dalrymple was not publishing charts until much later, suggesting incorrect dating. The Dalrymple chart shows the Philippines on its side and lacks any decorative elements, including a Manila inset. The next edition of the map, per Quirino, is the present. This is one of the earliest representations of Manila in a map, following the layout established by Antonio Fernandez de Roxas in his Topographia de la Ciudad de Manila.

Kino's Map of California: volume 1 of the set includes another highlight: Father Eusebio Kino's seminal map of the peninsula of California. Drawn in 1702, this printed version of the map appeared at the beginning of the push to establish Jesuit Missions in California, the first of which was founded in 1697 and eventually stretched throughout the Baja California peninsula. Kino's map carefully records the results of nine journeys he made in northwestern Mexico and along the Colorado River. On one of these, sighting only land to the west from an elevation near the head of the Colorado River, Kino declared unequivocally that California was part of the North American continent. Although progressive European Cartographers adopted Kino's geography, the California-as-an-island myth was not fully dispelled until 1746 when another Jesuit, Father Consag, provided conclusive proof.

Thanks to its publication in Der Neue Welt-Bott, Kino's 1702 map became one of the most well-known maps of California. The exceptionally wide dissemination of the map contributed greatly to the rediscovery of the peninsularity of California and the rejection of the insular theory - Mirela Altic, Encounters in the New World: Jesuit Cartography of the Americas (2022), page 106.

The first volume includes Jesuit missionary accounts relating to California, New Mexico, Mexico and Panama, including a German translation of P. Francisco Maria Picolo's Informe, which is widely regarded as the first printed account of California. Picolo's Informe appears herein as report no. 72 in part III (pp. 34-40).

Many parts of the Neue Welt-Bott relate to America, with much curious information about the people and places of South America, the West Indies, and more. Because of this content, several parts have earned separate entries in the European Americana bibliography.

Extensive sets of the Neue Welt-Bott in nice contemporary bindings are quite rare in the market. As far back as the mid 19th-century booksellers were already noting the rarity of sets (for example see David Nutt, A catalogue of theological books in foreign languages (1857): "Complete copies of the work are very uncommon"; and Brunet, "se trouve rarement complète." Nutt offered a set of parts 1-36 bound in 9 volumes at the luxurious and exorbitant (for 1857) price of 10 guineas.

In a notable feat of Americana bibliography, the 19th century bookseller David Nutt attempted to summarize the American content. Nutt asserted much of the material was either purposely omitted from the Lettres édifiantes, or not accessible to the compilers of that important work. He listed the American content as follows:

Part I (Nos. 17–27; 28–33): eleven letters from South America, followed by six from North America, chiefly New Spain, California, and Sonora.

Part II (Nos. 46–51; 52–56): six letters from South America, and five from Canoao, Tarahumara, Mexico, and Sonora.

Part III (Nos. 70–72): a letter from Chile (No. 70); a letter from California with the rare map by Eusebius Kino (No. 71); and a letter from Mexico (No. 72).

Part IV (No. 90): an especially interesting description of Peru, Buenos Ayres, and Brazil, by Francis Burgos.

Part V (Nos. 111–115): five letters from Lima, Chile, and Peru, with a map of the River of the Amazons.

Part VI (Nos. 139–140): two curious letters concerning the Iroquois and the conversion of Catherine Tegahqueta.

Part VII (Nos. 165–170; 171–174): six letters from South America, and four relating to California and Mexico, including Borini’s journey from Mexico to Acapulco.

Part VIII (Nos. 205–210; 211–212): six letters from Quito, Chile, etc., with Deubler’s journey from Cartagena to Popayán and Gailner’s progress thence to Quito; plus the discovery of the Nayani and the conversion of Sonora and Tarahumara.

Part IX (Nos. 229–232): four letters from Cayenne, New Granada, and Buenos Ayres, with accounts of journeys from Paraguay to Chile and from Panama to Lima, and the discovery of the Guyannariens of Paraguay.

Part X (No. 249): description of the island Kintschao (Quinchao) in Chile.

Part XI (Nos. 281–285): five letters from the Amazon region, from Quito, Cartagena, etc.

Part XIV (Nos. 320–321–321; 322–325): three particularly interesting letters from St. Domingo and from Nanrantsuak and Kebek (Quebec) in New France; and four letters from Brazil.

Part XVI: two large folding maps of Upper and Lower Paraguay, with a general review of the Missions.

Part XVII (Nos. 388–391): four letters from Latacunga, including accounts of the natural productions of regions bordering the Amazon and the Orinoco.

Part XIX (No. 416): the building of the Church of Kuen in Cayenne.

Parts XXI–XXII (Nos. 438–453): No. 438, the romantic diary of Michael Herre’s journey from Europe via Buenos Ayres to St. Jago, and thence to the Island of Conception; Nos. 439–445, seven letters of Francis Borini rich in particulars on manners, customs, natural productions, and mechanical arts of the interior; Nos. 446–447, two letters on native tribes of the Orinoco; and Nos. 448–453, nine highly valuable communications on Cartagena, Mexico, Cayenne, New Orleans, and the Mississippi, together with a very full account of Columbus’s discovery and a description of Haiti (occupying eighteen closely printed columns).

Parts XXIII–XXIV (Nos. 506, 510, 511): No. 506, an engaging letter of Henry Peschke from Paraguay to his parents (aborigines and natural productions); No. 510, a very full description of Buenos Ayres; and No. 511, on the aboriginal tribes of Paraguay.

Parts XXV (Nos. 528–533): six letters concerning Cuba, Mexico, Peru, St. Juan Fernandez, etc.

Parts XXVIII: entirely devoted to Paraguay.

Parts XXIX: entirely devoted to North and South America, with extensive particulars on the aborigines of the “far West” (now part of the United States). No. 567 a 1723 letter from Fr. Sebastian Rales from New France, on the Ottawa (Utaouackers) and Abnaki.

Parts (Nos. 637–640): four communications from North and South America.

Pagination of present set as follows: 26 maps, 9 plates, and 21 tables (several folding).

Provenance

Bookplates of a Jesuit library "Bib. Coll. Pictav. S.J."