Pieter Goos (1615-1675)

Pieter Goos, son of the engraver Abraham Goos, was one of the best known maritime booksellers of Amsterdam. He was not only a bookseller but also a copper-engraver and even a book printer.
His first pilot book, the Lichtende Columne ofte Zee-Spiegel appeared in 1650. The well-made pilot guides and the beautiful sea-atlas reflect a high professional standard. The many editions published over 28 years is an indication of the customers’ appreciation. The Zeespiegel was printed in Dutch, French (1662), and English (1658). Goos printed all the time from the same 60 plates. For his Straetsboeck, being the third part of the Zeespiegel, Pieter Goos copied the text from Lootsman’s Straetboeck and copied also the plates. This atlas of the Mediterranean appeared in 1662.
Pieter Goos also published a fourth and fifth part of his Zeespiegel. For the fourth part, he used the second part of Het Brandende Veen by Arent Roggeveen, which dealt with the coasts of West-Africa (No copy with Goos’s imprint is known). For the fifth part, he used the first part of Het Brandende Veen, which appeared in 1675. It contains the charts and sailing directions for the West Indies.

The first edition of his sea-atlas, the Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Wereld, came out in 1666. For the design of the charts, Goos copied nearly all the charts from Hendrik Doncker’s sea-atlas. All the years through, till 1675 (the year of his death), the number of 40 or 41 maps remained the same.
When Pieter Goos died in March 1675, his widow continued the shop. She brought out a few new editions of the Zee-Atlas with 44 charts. Part of the atlases was sold then by the famous Amsterdam bookbinder Albert Magnus. These copies are renowned for their outstanding colouring. She died in 1677; their son, Hendrik Goos, born in 1641, took over and sold his father’s pilot books until 1680.