Despite the subtitle of this fascinating book, it soon turns into an account of how Peter Bellerby’s obsession eventually led to a considerable personal triumph. Unable to find a worthy 80th birthday present for his father, he set out to create a globe himself, which led him to found Bellerby & Co, ‘the only fully bespoke globemakers in the world’. His chatty style sometimes seems at odds with the meticulous professionalism of his work, which in due course led to him selling his car and his share in a house in north London.
There was nothing easy about the process of establishing the company. Requirements included ‘knowledge and skill in engineering, geographical knowledge, and artistic ability in painting’, not to mention financial acumen. The sequence in which the details of this large subject are treated seems a bit of a jumble, but this hardly matters since the interest of the text will keep the reader going. More important are the sheer resourcefulness, ingenuity and perseverance shown by the author, and it is his patience and mastery of the various skills required that make the story so impressive and enjoyable.
Globes are put together by gluing strips of painted paper, known as gores, onto a frame. They have to be wider at the equator and taper upwards and downwards towards the poles. Bellerby doesn’t mention this, but older globes could be edited following new geographical discoveries, as in the ones updated by J&W Cary, with a second edition, in 1825, in spite of the literally microscopic lettering of the place names. The artwork can include exquisite miniatures of animals, birds, fishes and plants to be found in different parts of the world. In the case of celestial globes, the signs of the zodiac can figure more prominently than on a more crowded terrestrial map.
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