In a major new undertaking, one which many members will consider long overdue, the Society, in conjunction with its publisher Ashgate, is embarking on the reprinting of the Society's entire back catalogue from Series I, number 1 to Series II, number 190; in fact the entire collection of 290 volumes published between the years 1847 and 2000. These will be fine quality hardback facsimiles of the original works, hopefully far superior to anything already on offer, and will become available at an attractive price on a print-on-demand basis. Every book will also be available as a downloadable e-book at a reduced price. The project is already under way but still in its infancy, so orders cannot be taken at the present time. Please watch this space for future developments.
Society for the History of Discoveries. 51st Annual Meeting. Second call for papers.
Members of the Hakluyt Society are reminded of the 51st Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries, which will take place on 12-14 September 2010 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A second call for papers for this event has been made by the SHD and remains open until 16 April 2010. Members interested in submitting a proposal will find full details on the SHD website. Annual General Meeting and Reception, 23 June 2010
The next Annual General Meeting of the Hakluyt Society will take place on Wednesday, 23 June 2010 at the House of the Royal Geographical Society when it is hoped that as many members as possible will be able to attend. The guest speaker this year will be Ray Howgego (writer of this website) whose subject will be 'Imaginary, Invented and Apocryphal Voyages in the Literature of Exploration.' Further details will be announced shortly.
Maps and Society meeting sponsored by the Hakluyt Society
On Thursday, February 25th, 2010, Captain Michael Barritt, RN (Vice-president of the Hakluyt Society) delivered the fourth lecture in the current series of Maps and Society lectures in the history of cartography. His subject was ‘Practical Men of Science’: Operational Surveys in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the Emergence of the RN Hydrographic Specialisation.
For a complete calendar of forthcoming Maps and Society lectures, please click here.
The Journal of John Narbrough: an appeal to secure the manuscript for the British Library
An appeal has been launched for donations to secure for the British Library the journal kept by Sir John Narbrough, giving an account of his voyage to South America in 1669-71. This beautifully illustrated document, with its intricate drawings of animals and native peoples, and its hitherto unknown manuscript charts in Narbrough's own hand, is regarded by the Council of the Hakluyt Society as an item of such iconic national importance and research value that it should not be allowed to go abroad. The Society, therefore, is pleased to provide publicity for the appeal, which it is hoped will raise the deficit of £24,000 required to secure the document for the nation. For further information about the manuscript, and how donations may be made, please click here.
Richard Hakluyt: public lecture
At Gresham College on 28 January 2009, Anthony Payne, whose census of surviving copies of Hakluyt's major works appears on this website, delivered a lecture titled 'Richard Hakluyt: London's Role in Navigation and History'. For those who were unable to attend this lecture the full text is available by clicking this link. A new edition of Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations
A new project, under the general editorship of Dr. Daniel Carey of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Professor Claire Jowitt of Nottingham Trent University (NTU), is underway to produce a critical, annotated edition of Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. The edition is under contract to Oxford University Press to appear in 14 volumes.
Call for information. The editors invite all scholars interested in this topic who may have new information to offer to click here.
New publications from the Hakluyt Society
The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger. Volume III. The Voyages of 1817, 1818 and 1820. Edited by C. Ian Jackson. With an Appendix by Fred M. Walker.
The third volume of Scoresby's journals, which completes this major publication event, contains the unpublished journals of Scoresby's voyages in the years 1817 to 1820. The voyage of 1817 was unsuccessful in whaling terms, but the relatively ice-free waters of the Greenland Sea provided the conditions for a renewed interest in Arctic exploration. In 1818 Scoresby broke with the Whitby shipowners and took command of the Fame in partnership with his father. This partnership lasted only briefly; Scoresby moved to Liverpool and spent the season of 1819 ashore, completing his Account of the Arctic Regions and overseeing the construction of a new ship, the Baffin. In 1820 he took the Baffin north and returned with a full ship of seventeen whales. Scoresby's journal includes detailed accounts of his landings on Jan Mayen in 1817, Spitsbergen in 1818, and the Langanes peninsula of Iceland in 1820. An appendix by Fred Walker provides a most interesting account of the design and construction of Arctic whalers. The 290-page book is illustrated with three route maps, three monochrome plates and six line drawings. A copious bibliography is provided, together with conversion tables and a glossary of nautical terms.
The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger. Volume II. The Voyages of 1814, 1815 and 1816. Edited by C. Ian Jackson. With an Appendix by George Huxtable.
This second volume of Scoresby's journals contains the unpublished accounts of his three voyages in the Esk in 1814-16, combining scientific records, social and religious comment, with detailed descriptions of navigation and whaling. The journals demonstrate the dangers inherent in what should have been routine annual sailings to the Greenland Sea - damage by ice, persistent fog and frequent gales, and an incident in 1814 when the Esk was caught in a tidal current and almost wrecked before she reached the Shetlands. The journal for 1815 also describes the destruction of the Hull whaler Clapham, one of the finest ships engaged in the whale trade. The volume includes an account of the 1814 voyage taken from the journal of a young supernumerary named Charles Steward, together with an appendix on Scoresby's navigation methods by George Huxtable. This 345-page book is illustrated with nine monochrome plates and a map of each of the three voyages. A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia: Ibn al-Mujawir's Tarikh al-Mustabsir. Translated and edited by G. Rex Smith.
This is the first English translation of the Tarikh al-Mustabsir, a fascinating account of the western and southern regions of the Arabian Peninsula written early in the thirteenth century CE. Its author, about whom relatively little is known, was probably a businessman from the east of the Islamic world who made the pilgrimage to Mecca and subsequently travelled through Yemen, Aden, and along the Arabian Sea coast before returning home via Iraq. A shrewd observer of all that he encountered, his book provides a rich and extraordinarily detailed account of the peoples of southern Arabia, their history, customs, administration and architecture. Written with a humour and wit unfamiliar to Islamic literature of the period, this important work is a unique source for the social and economic history of thirteenth-century Arabia. The editor's appendices include a substantial bibliography, a list of routes, and a glossary of Arabic words and their meanings. A comprehensive index of people and place names is provided. The text is illustrated with original plans of Mecca and other cities, together with a rare and curious map of the island of Socotra.
Four Travel Journals. The Americas, Antarctica and Africa, 1775-1874. Edited by Herbert K. Beals, R.J. Campbell, Ann Savours, Anita McConnell & Roy Bridges.
This splendid 400-page volume, with its four previously unpublished journals from various parts of the world, should have something for everyone. The book opens with a translation from the Spanish of the journal of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, whose ship, the Sonora, participated in a Spanish expedition sent from Mexico in 1775 to explore the north-west coast of America. The journal describes the hardships and discoveries of the voyage, during which a landing party was attacked and killed, and the Sonora was almost capsized by a massive wave. Next comes the journal of Commander Pringle Stokes who served in command of HMS Beagle under Captain Phillip Parker King during the survey of the Strait of Magellan in 1827. The journal records a detached operation, in very difficult weather in the western part of the strait.
The third text is the journal of Midshipman Joseph Henry Kay, a young officer aboard HMS Chanticleer, commanded by Henry Foster, which was sent out in 1828-31 to make observations in the far South Atlantic, between Cape Horn and Antarctica. Kay's diary describes encounters with Brazilian warships, largely manned by Englishmen, and his struggle against gales and snowstorms to take observations at Deception Island. In distinct contrast, the final journal, published in English for the first time, is that of Jacob Wainwright, the young African freed slave who in 1873-74 was one of those who brought the body of David Livingstone to Zanzibar after the missionary's death at Ilala in what is now northern Zambia. Each of the four journals is fully annotated and preceded by a very substantial historical and biographical introduction. Copious bibliographies are supplied, and the book is illustrated with fifty plates and eight maps.
Four Travel Journals
Updated: 4 March 2010
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