The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English

Richard HakluytProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.6
Word count
807K words
Chapters
81

Tags

English Originals Historical GeographyWorld History Trade HistoryDiscoveryTravelogueCourage and AdventureMaritime ExplorationHistorical CompilationElizabethan EraExotic CultureColonial ExpansionCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the EnglishAuthor: Hakluyt, Richard, 1552?-1616,Language: English, Class: G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation, Release Date: Dec 1, 2004

Editor's review

Compiled by Richard Hakluyt, this collection of voyages and travel documents is a treasure trove of primary sources for understanding the early history of English overseas expansion. It is not a narrative history in the modern sense but a gathering of ships' logs, trade records, diplomatic reports, and explorers' accounts, showing how the English gradually took to the sea in the sixteenth century. The book preserves the geographical knowledge, commercial ambitions, and imperial imagination of the time, making it an irreplaceable source for the study of the Age of Discovery, English maritime history, and early global trade. Reading it, one feels the rough texture of original documents and sees the compiler's patriotic zeal in organizing his materials. Suitable as a supplementary reader for historical research, or for readers with a strong interest in voyages of exploration to read slowly and savor. It is advisable to read alongside maps and historical background materials to avoid giving up midway due to archaic English expression and the miscellaneous nature of the format.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the introduction or a relevant historical overview to establish the timeframe of sixteenth-century English overseas expansion.
  2. Prepare a world map and a table of place names, marking routes and trading posts as you go.
  3. Read selectively by theme—trade, diplomacy, exploration—rather than straight through from cover to cover.
  4. Take notes on archaic spellings and proper names, and use annotated editions or scholarly resources for support.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
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  11. 11
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  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
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  35. 35
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  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81

FAQ

Is this book a complete narrative history of voyages? No. It is a documentary collection compiled by Hakluyt, containing primary materials such as ships' logs, trade records, diplomatic reports, and explorers' accounts. It is closer to a sourcebook than a modern narrative history, and readers must piece together the threads themselves.
Can I read it without a background in history? Yes, but some preparation helps. It is advisable to first learn the basic background of the Age of Discovery and English overseas trade, and to use maps and annotated materials for support; otherwise archaic English and the miscellany of formats may discourage you.
Is the electronic edition suitable for academic citation? It can serve as a convenient version for consultation and preliminary citation, but formal academic citation should be checked against authoritative print or critical editions, as pagination and arrangement in the electronic edition may differ from the original.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Richard Hakluyt Author · English · 1552–1616

Richard Hakluyt (1552?–1616) was an English geographer and clergyman, born in London and educated at Christ Church, Oxford. He devoted his life to collecting records of voyages and travels, compiling The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, first published in 1589; our collection holds 18 of his works. The book draws on first-hand ships' logs, sailors' oral accounts and official documents, arranged by voyage and region in plain, practical prose, preserving extensive detail and geographical knowledge of Tudor-era ocean travel. Hakluyt advocated English colonization of North America and is regarded as a key promoter of Elizabethan overseas expansion; his editorial method and documentary care deeply influenced later compilations of maritime literature. Beyond the outlines of his life, public information about him is limited.