John Ogilby (1600-1676) was one of the most interesting British mapmakers, and translator of Homer and Virgil. After a slightly disreputable start in life, Ogilby gained a certain notoriety in 1637 when he opened the first theatre of Ireland in Dublin. Here he mingled dance and drama with fluency, but was beset with financial difficulties and the institution had to close in 1641. In 1650, he published his first important work The fables of Aesop paraphras'd in verse, illustrated by F. Cleyn. The second volume of Virgil's translation was published in 1658, the year of Lord Cromwell's death. After a period out of favour during the Commonwealth, the Restoration of Charles II brought fortune back to Ogilby with a commission to help in the arrangements for the coronation in 1660 with the composing of speeches and songs. Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, he repositioned himself as a publisher specializing in geographic and cartographic material, and in the following decade produced two incredibly accurate plans of London, and his magnum opus: 'Britannia, Volume the First: or, an Illustration of the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales' (1675) the first published road-book of any country in western Europe. The volume was hugely successful, and much reprinted and, when the copyright expired, heavily copied by subsequent mapmakers.