This is an account of the Portuguese mission which landed at Massawa on the west coast of the Red Sea in April 1520 and re-embarked 6 years later. It was the first European embassy known to have reached the Ethiopian court and returned safely from it. It was a small group of fourteen, among whom was the chronicler Alvares, who wrote the most detailed early account of the country, valuable for Ethiopian history and the history of the expansion of Europe. Alvares's account was translated into English for the Hakluyt Society by Lord Stanley in 1881. This revision makes use of sources since...

Translated from the manuscript journal of his travels in the India Office by Lady Fawcett, and edited by Sir Charles Fawcett with the assistance of Sir Richard Burn. The main pagination of this and the preceding and following volumes (Second Series 95 and 97) is continuous, but each has its own Introduction. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1947.

The text of British Library Egerton MS 1982, with an essay on the cosmographical ideas of Mandeville's day by E. G. R. Taylor. The main pagination of this and the following volume (Second Series 102) is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1953.

Ludwig Leichhardt is chiefly known as the most important of the scientific explorers of Australia. His lively but detailed letters provide a narrative of his life from his student days in the mid-1830s until 1848 when he disappeared in the Australian interior. Leichhardt's main interest was natural philosophy, particularly biology, geology and geography, but as a scholar of nature in the widest sense, he closely observed and recorded many aspects of the surrounding world, describing social life in early Victorian England and commenting on some of the leading teachers and philosophers of the...

Pedro Fernández de Quirós was a remarkable navigator and explorer. Having sailed in 1595 as chief pilot in the ill-fated Spanish expedition to the Solomon Islands, he returned to the 'Austral Lands' - the area of the New Hebrides - in 1605 with another expedition, which is the subject of this volume. In his Introduction Father Kelly sets out to resolve some of the outstanding historical problems of this Quirós expedition in the light of recently discovered documents. At the same time he gives a brief description of the Franciscan missionary apostolate, its contribution to...

Edited from Contemporary Records. The main pagination of this and the previous volume (Second Series 1) is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1899.

Four narratives, edited with introduction and notes, two of them by or attributed to Mendaña's companions, Hernando Gallego and Pedro Sarmiento. This and the following volume (Second Series 8) have continuous pagination. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1901.

Extracts from despatches by Laurens Storm van 's Gravesande to the directors of the Zeeland Chamber of the Dutch West India Company, 1738-72, selected to illustrate the rise and expansion of the colony, with a detailed introduction. This volume ends with the despatch dated 15 March 1760. For May 1760 to September 1772, see the following volume (Second Series 27), with which the pagination is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1911.

Edited from Contemporary Records. The main pagination of this and the following volume (Second Series 2) is continuous. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1899. Owing to technical constraints the portrait of Sir Thomas Roe is not included in the e-book edition of this work.

Letters, narratives, and extracts from diaries, etc. of 1500-01, chiefly of Portuguese and Venetian origin, translated, with introduction and notes. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1938.