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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Three volumes, published in 1887, are devoted to the diary of William Hedges (1632 1701) who in 1681 became the first Agent of the East India Company at its new base in Bengal. The first...

John Lewis Burckhardt (1784 1817) was a Swiss explorer who is best remembered for his rediscovery of the ancient city of Petra in modern Jordan. In 1809 he was commissioned by the African Association to discover the source of the River Niger. In preparation for this journey, for which he needed to pass as a Muslim, Burckhardt spent two years exploring and studying Arabic and Islamic law in Aleppo, before travelling widely in Arabia and Egypt. These volumes, first published by the African Association in 1829, contain his account of the time he spent in Mecca and Medina: he was the first...

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. The name of Anthony Jenkinson (1529 1610/11), the Elizabethan traveller and diplomat, is perhaps better known in Russia than in Britain. As agent for the Muscovy Company, he made four...

Richard Schomburgk (1811 1891) accompanied his brother Robert Hermann Schomburgk on his mission to survey the boundary of British Guiana (his account is also reissued in this series). Richard was commissioned by the Prussian government to find new flora, fauna and ethnographical specimens for the Berlin Botanic Gardens and the royal museums. The publication in 1847 1848 in Germany of this three-volume account of the expedition was supported by Alexander von Humboldt, who was a close friend. The third volume especially was considered a major taxonomical work. Schomburgk contracted yellow...

A detailed account of missionary work in nineteenth-century China by Hannah Davies.