Editions
The main activity of the Society is the publication of scholarly editions of primary sources on the voyages and travels undertaken by individuals in many parts of the globe. These include early accounts dealing with the geography, ethnology and natural history of the regions visited. The Society has to date published over 200 editions in some 350 volumes. All editions are published in English.
Although many of the Society's past editions relate to British ventures, with documentary sources in English, the majority concern non-British enterprises and are based on texts in languages other than English. Translations from Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French or Dutch have regularly appeared, with occasional translations from Russian, Greek, Latin, Amharic, Mandarin, Persian or Arabic. The translation in which the material is presented is normally a fresh version, but in certain instances might be an earlier rendering, checked and corrected as necessary.
All editions contain scholarly annotation which provides both the general reader and the student with assistance in the elucidation of the material presented, and offers guidance on the relevance of the material within the context of global development and world history. Volumes are produced in a standard binding and furnished with maps and contemporary illustrations. Special editions appear in the Extra Series.
Past Hakluyt Society editions have dealt with the following explorers: Ibn Battuta, Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, Pedro Cieza de León, John Cabot, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Cosmas Indicopleustes, James Cook, Vasco da Gama, Semyon Dezhnev, Francis Drake, Humphrey Gilbert, Jean-François de La Pérouse, Ludwig Leichhardt, Ma Huan, Olaus Magnus, Arthur J. M. Jephson, Jens Munk, and George Vancouver.
Currently, two volumes are published on average each year. The Society's Annual General Meeting and Annual Lecture is held at the Royal Geographical Society. The Society's website hosts a discussion group and publishes an online Journal of the Hakluyt Society.
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Famous quotes containing the word editions:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)