3 Review(s)

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. These two volumes contain accounts of early seventeenth-century expeditions to Greenland and Hudson's Bay, chiefly under the Danish flag. Although none succeeded in their object, which was to re-establish Danish communication with and commercial exploitation of Greenland, and to find a North-West Passage to Asia, they added greatly to knowledge of the Arctic, and provided maps for future exploration.