Hakluytus Posthumus Or Purchas His Pilgrimes

Richard Hakluyt''s 12-volume Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation originally published at the end of the sixteenth century and reissued by the Cambridge Library Collection in the edition of 19035 was followed in 1625 by Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes now reissued in a 20-volume edition published in 19057. When first published in four folio volumes the work was the largest ever printed in England. An Anglican priest Samuel Purchas (15771626) was a friend of Hakluyt and based his great work in part on papers not published by Hakluyt before his death. As well as being a wide-ranging survey of world exploration it is notable as an anti-Catholic polemic and a justification of British settlement in North America. Volume 5 includes accounts and journals describing voyages to the East Indies and the rivalry between the British and the Dutch in the region.