Richard Hakluyt (c.1552-1616)
Biographical note
Collector of voyages, belonged to a good Herefordshire family of Dutch descent, was born either at Eyton in that county or in London, and educated at Westminster School and Oxford The sight of a map of the world fired his imagination and implanted in his mind the interest in geography and the lives and adventures of our great navigators and discoverers, which became the ruling passion of his life; and in order to increase his knowledge of these matters he studied various foreign languages and the art of navigation. He took orders, and was chaplain of the English Embassy in Paris, Rector of Witheringsett, Suffolk, 1590, Archdeacon of Westminster, 1602, and Rector of Gedney, Lincolnshire, 1612. After a first collection of voyages to America and the West Indies he compiled, while at Paris, his great work, The Principal Navigations, Voyages ... and Discoveries of the English Nation made by Sea or over Land to the Remote and Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth ... within the Compass of these 1500 Years. It appeared in its final form (three folio vols.) in 1599. Besides it he published A Discourse of Western Planting, and he left a vast mass of MS. afterwards used (in far inferior style) by S. Purchas. In all his work H. was actuated not only by the love of knowledge, but by a noble patriotism: he wished to see England the great sea-power of the world, and he lived to see it so. His work, as has been said, is “our English epic.” In addition to his original writings he translated various works, among them being The Discoveries of the World, from the Portuguese of Antonio Galvano.
[From A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin, 1910]
More ...
- from Wikipedia
Works
- Voyages in Search of The North-West Passage [ read | download ]
- Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of
the English Nation [ read | download ]
- Northern Europe
- North-Eastern Europe and Adjacent Countries: Tartary
- North-Eastern Europe and Adjacent Countries: The Muscovy Company and the North-Eastern Passage, Section I
- North-Eastern Europe and Adjacent Countries: The Muscovy Company and the North-Eastern Passage, Section II
- Central and Southern Europe
- Madeira and the Canaries: Ancient Asia, Africa, &c.
- England's Naval Exploits Against Spain
- Asia, Part I
- Asia, Part II
- Asia, Part III
- Africa
- America, Part I
- America, Part II
- America, Part III
- America, Part IV; West Indies; Voyages of Circumnavigation, Part I
- Voyages of Circumnavigation, Part II; Miscellaneous; Index
- The Fardle of Facions conteining the aunciente maners, customes and lawes, of the peoples enhabiting the two partes of the earth, called Affricke and Asie / by Johannes Boemus ; translated by William Waterman [ read | download ]
- Mandeville's Voyages [ read | download ]
- The iournall of Frier Odoricus, one of the order of the Minorites, concerning strange things which hee sawe among the Tarters of the East [ read | download ]
- The iournal of frier William de Rubruquis a French man of the order of the minorite friers, vnto the East parts of the worlde. An. Dom. 1253 [ read | download ]
- The long and wonderful voyage of Frier Iohn de Plano Carpini [ read | download ]
- A briefe commentarie of Island by Arngrimus Ionas [ read | download ]
- The Discovery of Muscovy, by Richard Hakluyt [ from Project Gutenberg ]
- Voyager's Tales, by Richard Hakluyt [ from Project Gutenberg ]
Hakluyt included within the Principal Navigations a number of works in sufficient completeness that they may stand alone. These have been extracted and formatted as separate works:
The following works are available from Project Gutenberg:
