Hakluyt Society recent news and forthcoming events

Hakluyt Society Recent News and Forthcoming Events

Hakluyt Society Recent News and Forthcoming Events

Hakluyt Society Blog

The Hakluyt Society Blog has been redesigned and is now located at:
https://blog.hakluyt.com/

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Guest posts related to the Hakluyt Society, to its publications and to Richard Hakluyt are welcome.

Hakluyt Society Blog

The second volume for 2025, Third Series No. 45, has been published and has been distributed to members.

Taking Newton On Tour. The Grand Tour Travel Diary Of Martin Folkes (1690–1754).
Edited by Anna Marie Roos.

Hakluyt Society Essay Competition 2025

The Hakluyt Society received exceptionally high-quality submissions in the 2025 Essay Competition and thanks all entrants. We are delighted to announce this year’s results.

This year’s winner of the first prize of £1250 is George Clay, Georgetown University, for his essay ‘‘The Many Lives of Francisco de Angola’. The judges commended it as ‘an excellent essay in all facets: original, bold, conceptually sharp, and written with verve and sensitivity’.

Second prize of £250 was awarded to Peter Wells, University of East Anglia, for ‘“No Land Nor Ice in the Way”: The Collision of Science and Reality in the Speedwell’s Search for the Northeast Passage (1676) and due to the exceptional quality of this year’s entries, the judges recommended the award of an Honourable Mention to James Fox, St Andrews University, for ‘Numeracy, otherness and the invention of “civilisation” in Anglo-European travel writing, c.1660–c.1800’.

Many congratulations to George, Peter, and James, who have been invited to receive their awards at the Society’s AGM on 18 June 2025. Details of how to enter the Hakluyt Society Essay Prize Competition 2026 will be announced later in the year.

 

Hakluyt Society Studies in the History of Travel

This is a separate series from the main Hakluyt Society volumes and will continue to be published by Routledge despite the main series moving to Boydell and Brewer. Professors Daniel Carey and Joan Pau Rubiés remain as the series editors. The third volume in the series has just been published, The Chronicler of China: Juan González de Mendoza, between Mission, Empire and History (16th-17th centuries) by Diego Sola. This monograph provides an analysis and contextualization of an extraordinarily successful book, the History of the Great Kingdom of China (Rome 1585), by the Spanish Augustinian friar Juan González de Mendoza (1545-1618). These volumes are not part of the subscription entitlement but are available to members from Routledge at a 40% discount, by following the guidance in the members’ section of this website.

Latest Video

The 2025 Annual lecture was delivered at the AGM on 18 June 2025. The speaker was Dr Zoltán Biedermann of University College London. The title of his lecture is: ‘Indigenous voices in the literature of travel and exploration’. A video of the lecture can be viewed here.

Recent publications from the Hakluyt Society

THIRD SERIES 45: Anna Marie Roos ed.: Taking Newton On Tour. The Grand Tour Travel Diary Of Martin Folkes (1690–1754).

THIRD SERIES 44: Sylvie Brassard and John Milsom eds.: Scientific Voyage in the Southern Hemisphere and Around the World Executed Successively on Board the King’s Corvette Uranie and His Majesty’s Corvette La Physicienne During the Years 1817,1828, 1819, and 1820: Narrative Journal of Joseph-Paul Gaimard Commissioned Surgeon of the Marine Royal.

THIRD SERIES 43: Julia Leikin and Elena Smilianskaia eds.: Russian Faith, Honour, & Courage Displayed in a Faithfull Narrative of the Russian Expedition by Sea (1769 & 1770) by Rear Admiral John Elphinstone late Commander in Chief of a Squadron of Her Imperial Majesty’s Ships & Captain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy compiled from Original Letters, Papers & Journals. By John Elphinstone.

THIRD SERIES 42: Anthony Payne: Richard Hakluyt: A Bibliography 1580–1588 / with Essays on the Suppression of the Voyage to Cadiz in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations and Hakluyt and the East India Company.  2024. xxxv + 767 pp. 36 coloured plates.

THIRD SERIES 41: Nigel Statham and Ian C. Campbell, eds.: An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. 2023. 552 pages 27 B/W Illustrations.

THIRD SERIES 40: The Levant Voyage of the Blackham Galley (1696 – 1698) / The Sea Journal of John Looker, Ship’s Surgeon. / Edited by Colin Heywood and Edmond Smith. 2022. pp. 280, 16 colour plates, 3 maps, index.

THIRD SERIES 39: Michael Brennan, ed.: English Travellers to Venice, 1450-1600. 2022, pp. xxxiv+433, 16 maps, 27 colour plates, 45 b/w illustrations, 29-page introduction, timeline, appendix, bibliography, index.

Includes 35 separate accounts, drawn from contemporary manuscripts and printed sources, of the experiences of a wide range of English travellers to Venice. The Introduction assesses elements of Anglo-Venetian relationships during the period.

THIRD SERIES 38: Glen F. Dille, ed.: Spanish and Portuguese Conflict in the Spice Islands: the Loaysa Expedition to the Moluccas 1525-1535. From Book XX of The General and Natural History of the Indies by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés. 206 pages, 6 maps, 26-page introduction, notes, bibliography.

THIRD SERIES 37: Derek L. Elliott, ed.: The Voyages and Manifesto of William Fergusson, a Surgeon of the East India Company 1731-1739. 203 pages, 8 maps, 4 colour plates, 9 monochrome illustrations, including a 33-page introduction, bibliography, etc.

THIRD SERIES 36: Judith E. Bosnak & Frans X. Koot, trans. & eds: The Javanese Travels of Purwalelana / A Nobleman’s Account of his Journeys across the Island of Java 1860-1875. 294 pages, 4 maps, 24 colour plates, 49 photographs, introduction, appendixes, bibliography.

THIRD SERIES 35: Editor Trevor H. Levere The Arctic Journal of Captain Henry Wemyss Feilden, R.A., the Naturalist in H.M.S. Alert, 1875-1876. xxxi + 400 pages, 10 maps, 17 colour plates, 68 figures. Includes a 34-page Introduction, appendices, bibliography, indexes.

The first publication of the daily diary of Feilden, one of the two full-time naturalists on what was the first major British naval expedition to the high Arctic.