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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India.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 history of China derives mainly from the writings of the Flemish Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (1623 1688), who was sent as a missionary to China, and eventually, despite violent...