The Principal Navigations: Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation

ISBN-13: 9781537464695 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 152 str.

Richard Hakluyt; Edmund Goldsmid

Opis

The Principal Navigations - Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation - Collected by Richard Hakluyt, Preacher and Edited by Edmund Goldsmid. Richard Hakluyt (1553 - 23 November 1616) was an English writer. He is known for promoting the British colonisation of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1589-1600). Hakluyt was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. Between 1583 and 1588 he was chaplain and secretary to Sir Edward Stafford, English ambassador at the French court. An ordained priest, Hakluyt held important positions at Bristol Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and was personal chaplain to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, principal Secretary of State to Elizabeth I and James I. He was the chief promoter of a petition to James I for letters patent to colonize Virginia, which were granted to the London Company and Plymouth Company (referred to collectively as the Virginia Company) in 1606. The Hakluyt Society publishes scholarly editions of primary records of voyages and travels. "This elaborate and excellent Collection, which redounds as much to the glory of the English Nation as any book that ever was published, has already had sufficient complaints made in its behalf against our suffering it to become so scarce and obscure, by neglecting to republish it in a fair impression, with proper illustrations and especially an Index. But there may still be room left for a favourable construction of such neglect, and the hope that nothing but the casual scarcity of a work so long since out of print may have prevented its falling into those able hands that might, by such an edition, have rewarded the eminent Examples preserved therein, the Collector thereof and themselves according to their deserts." Thus wrote Oldys (The British Librarian, No III, March, 1737, page 137), nearly 150. years ago, and what has been done to remove this, reproach? The work has become so rare that even a reckless expenditure of money cannot procure a copy.