Extremely rare first (and only early) edition of an important songbook, with laudatory poems and songs about the river Amstel, which flowed into the IJ, an inlet of the Zuiderzee (now the IJselmeer) at Amsterdam. The surroundings and banks of the river were the favourite and beloved walking area for the citys residents for centuries. It is the first Dutch literary work devoted to a river (one of the few devoted to any feature of the natural landscape) and was ahead of its time in its emphasis on the close bond between people and their natural environment. It influenced Antonides, De Ystroom (Amsterdam, 1671). The engraving of nine naked nymphs about to push and drag the naked author into the water illustrates a passage on B8v-C2v, based in part on the ancient Greek story of Hylass abduction by water nymphs (in both, the protagonist visits a fantastic underwater world). Of considerable interest to the linguist or literary analyst are the "Aan-merckinghe op eenighe duystere woorden" (notes on a few obscure words): 25 numbered notes (A5v-8r) to the "Ode" and 112 numbered notes (D2r-E3v) to "De roemster hymnus aen den Aemsel", though most of the words are names and places: the superior numerals in the text refer the reader to these notes.
Van Veldens poetry is highly regarded from a literary standpoint and made important contributions to the use of Germanic and classical mythology in Dutch literature (it also refers to the Nile in ancient Egypt). When the extensively annotated 1973 edition appeared, only 4 copies of the original were known to survive. WorldCat reports the same four copies plus one supposedly at the Royal Library at the Hague (it appears to be a ghost, not in their on-line catalogue or the STCN. The University of Amsterdam has been missing for several years (the description in the 1973 edition makes it clear that it is not the present copy) so it is also not recorded in the STCN. The present copy therefore appears to be the fifth known and the fourth that can now be located, with the others at the British Library, the University Library in Leiden and the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (formerly at the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde). We suspect the leaves of the Leiden copy (scanned on dbnl.org) have been cut down and mounted on larger leaves, but the high contrast images dont show the edges.
With the owners inscription of the Rotterdam poet Nicolaas Jeremias Storm van 's Gravesande (1788-1860) on the verso of the second free endleaf. Only about 5 mm has been trimmed from the head margin and probably a bit less from the foot and a bit more from the fore-edge, so the leaves before trimming would have measured about 10 x 14 cm. With a tiny tear in the plate (which has been trimmed down to the printed image and mounted on a blank leaf, perhaps at the time of the present binding), and slightly browned, a few leaves with minor soiling or spots, but still in good condition, the binding very good. J. van Baalen & zonen, Catalogus van een uitgebreide verzameling boeken, ... nagelaten door ... N. J. Storm van 's Gravesande, ..., Rotterdam, 2 April 1861, lot 974 (this copy); Nicolaas Beets, ed., "De roemster van den Aemstel", in: Anna Roemer Visscher, Alle de gedichten, vol. 1 (1881), pp. 201-218 (citing the Leiden copy); Henri Leclert, Cat. ... Alphonse Willems, 4-7 May 1914, lot 276 (Amsterdam UL copy); Frederik Muller, Catalogue ... M. D.-C. van Voorst, ... et ... J.-J. van Voorst, ..., Amsterdam, 23 January 1860 (published 1859), lot 4892; Jacobus Scheltema, Anna en Maria Tesselschade (1808), pp. 12-15 & note 11 on pp. 102-105; Scheurleer, Liedboeken 154, 2; STCN (2 copies); USTC 1016603 & 1506652 (same 2 copies, 1 listed twice); Matthijs van Velden, De roemster van den Aemstel, with intro & notes by Utrecht students (1973); A.D. de Vries, "De dichter van de Roemster van den Aemste", in: Oud Holland, 1 (1883), pp. 64-72; WorldCat (5 copies in 5 entries, but one seems to be an error and another lost).