London: Printed by William Jaggard for Walter Burre, 1621. Folio (330 x 210 mm). Frontispiece with engraved title and 8 double-page maps and plans, occasional markings throughout, occasional minor corner losses, some very light spotting throughout, frontispiece and engraved title reinforced. Contemporary full calf with spine in 7 panels and 6 raised bands, rear board detached, significant wear to joints resulting in loss, rubbing, spine ends rubbed away; bookplates of Henry Hunter, Esq, and Hoyt H. Hudson (gift to Princeton University).

The History of the World was originally written while its author was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his role in the Main Plot of 1603 to depose King James I and replace him with Lady Arbella Stuart. It is believed to have been written in 1607 and was first published with the help of Ben Jonson in 1614. The work proved so popular that it went through eight editions in the same amount of time between publication Shakespeare's First and Fourth Folios; this popularity was no doubt due in part to King James I's objections to numerous lines in the first edition text which he deemed "too saucy in censuring the acts of princes." The poet Sir Edmund William Gosse would write of it, "...of its dignity there can be no two opinions, and in sustained power it easily surpassed every prose work of its own age."