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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. John Davis (c.1543 1605) was an eminent explorer and navigator who published two highly influential guides to practical navigation in 1594 and 1595 and invented an improved version of a...

Sir Albert Hastings Markham (1841 1918) was a British Admiral and Arctic explorer. He joined the Royal Navy at fifteen and after postings in China, the Mediterranean and Australia he was promoted to Commander in 1872. For the next six years he took part in Arctic exploration, later writing fascinating accounts of his experiences. He was appointed as Naval Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria in 1888, and in 1903 he received a knighthood and was promoted to admiral. Published in 1878, this is the first of several editions of Markham's fascinating first-hand account of the British Arctic expedition...

Enhanced by several attractive engravings, this work, first published in 1881, illuminates Arctic exploration in the region of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, north of the Russian mainland. Naval officer Albert Hastings Markham (1841-1918) summarises previous discoveries and voyages made in the region by various navigators from England, Russia, Norway and elsewhere. He goes on to give an account of his 1879 voyage aboard the Norwegian cutter Isbjorn, offering details of Arctic flora and fauna, topographical and oceanographic features, and navigational difficulties presented by ice. For those...

First published in 1874, this illustrated work by Albert Hastings Markham (1841-1918) recounts his experiences aboard the Dundee steam whaler Arctic. Markham also gives an account of the rescue of the crew of the American vessel Polaris, crushed by ice in 1872 during its attempt to reach the North Pole. The work is enhanced by details of meetings with Inuit, encounters with polar wildlife, oceanographic observations, and meteorological events. Appropriately, fellow naval officer and explorer Sherard Osborn (1822-75) wrote the introduction: he had a long interest in Arctic exploration,...