The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo was sent as an ambassador from Henry III of Castile to the court of Timour (Tamerlane) at Samarkand in 1403. This 1859 book contains a translated account of his...

William Desborough Cooley (1795 1883) was a geographer and historian, the author of a collection of influential texts on the development of geographical study, and a key founding member of the Hakluyt Society. First published as a complete set in 1831 as part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, this is the history in three volumes of the development of the geographical sciences through travel and exploration. Each volume is divided chronologically by historical era, tracing the pursuit of geographical discovery by both land and sea from the Roman Empire to the Himalayan expeditions of...

William Desborough Cooley (1795 1883) was a geographer and historian, the author of a collection of influential texts on the development of geographical study, and a key founding member of the Hakluyt Society. First published as a complete set in 1831 as part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, this is the history in three volumes of the development of the geographical sciences through travel and exploration. Each volume is divided chronologically by historical era, tracing the pursuit of geographical discovery by both land and sea from the Roman Empire to the Himalayan expeditions of...

William Desborough Cooley (1795 1883) was a geographer and historian, the author of a collection of influential texts on the development of geographical study, and a key founding member of the Hakluyt Society. First published as a complete set in 1831 as part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, this is the history in three volumes of the development of the geographical sciences through travel and exploration. Each volume is divided chronologically by historical era, tracing the pursuit of geographical discovery by both land and sea from the Roman Empire to the Himalayan expeditions of...

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume contains an English translation of a description of Ethiopia written by Francisco Alvarez (c.1465 c.1540) during the six years he spent as a missionary with the Portuguese...

Volume 65 of the publications of the Hakluyt Society (1882) contains the early history of Bermuda.

Detailed and comprehensive, this 1905 guide for travellers provides a fascinating insight into Asiatic culture and landscape.

The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, first published in 1899, contains the account by the redoubtable Isabella Bird (now Mrs J. F. Bishop) of a journey through central China in 1896 1897. The volume focuses on her travels though the province of Szechuan and among the Man-tze of the Somo territory. Many of the areas she explored and carefully described were almost unknown to European visitors and had not been mentioned in any earlier English publications. The volume is based on journal letters and the diary written during her journey, and it is generously illustrated with photographs and Chinese...

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This 1874 volume contains an account of the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519 1522 by Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian member of Magellan's expedition. It also contains...

Thomas Wright Blakiston (1832 1891) was an army officer, explorer and naturalist who served with the British forces in Ireland, Nova Scotia and the Crimea before being posted to Canton during the second Opium War in 1859. While in Canton, Blakiston organised an expedition up the Yangtsze river and Five Months on the Yang-tsze (1862) is his account of his experiences navigating 'one of the greatest rivers in the world a distance of eighteen hundred miles'. Despite the region being subject to extensive insurgency, Blakiston was able to travel 900 miles further up the river than any European...