Welcome to our redesigned Hakluyt Society blog
We hope you like the new design of the Hakluyt Society blog! All of the content from the previous blog has been transferred here at https://blog.hakluyt.com/. The new layout should make it easier for you to find archived posts of interest to you and new posts will appear here from now on. Guest posts related to the Hakluyt Society, to its publications and to Richard Hakluyt are welcome, especially reviews of our volumes. If you would like to publish a relevant post, please contact blog@hakluyt.com If you would like to be informed by email when new posts appear, please register using the Subscribe email address submission field on the right. […]
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Taking Newton On Tour. The Grand Tour Travel Diary Of Martin Folkes (1690–1754)
Volume 45 in the Hakluyt Society Third Series and the second volume sent to members in 2025 is Taking Newton On Tour. The Grand Tour Travel Diary Of Martin Folkes (1690–1754), edited by Anna Marie Roos. This a critical edition of an exceptional example of the ‘Scientific Grand Tour’ taken by Martin Folkes. Martin Folkes (1690-1754) was Newton’s protégé, antiquary, mathematician, and the only simultaneous president of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. In 1733-5, he went on Grand Tour as a scientific ambassador for the Royal Society, demonstrating Newtonian optics to Italian virtuosi. He also measured ancient and Renaissance buildings to understand past architectural engineering and design. […]
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Hakuyt Society Essay Prize competition for 2026
Submissions for the 2026 prize are now invited, the deadline for which will be 1 March 2026. For further details, and instructions on how to submit your essay, please download the information sheet. The Essay Prize Judging Panel for 2026 is: Dr Katie Bank, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Department of History, University of Birmingham. Dr Derek L. Elliott, Educator, Ljubljana International School, Slovenia. Dr Eva Johanna Holmberg, University Researcher, Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland(Chair of Judging Panel). Dr William Kynan-Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Open University. Professor Joyce Lorimer, Professor Emerita, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier […]
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The Hakluyt Society is seeking series editors
Series editor opportunity - we are seeking to recruit new series editors for the Hakluyt Society. Our Society has been publishing important historical texts on travel and exploration since 1846, documenting significant accounts which further our geographical, political, economic and cultural understanding of the world and its peoples. The series editors are essential officers of the Hakluyt society. They are the link between the editor of the text (the author) and the Society. They play a crucial role in ensuring that we maintain the high standards of our texts and achieve a regular flow of publications for our readers. At the same time, the series editors need to be aware [...]
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Follow us on Facebook
Announcements of forthcoming volumes and other publications, imminent publication and distribution of volumes, as well as details of the upcoming AGM usually appear first on the Hakluyt Society Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HakluytSociety/ . In addition, details of the upcoming Hakluyt Society Essay Prize competition and the announcement of the Essay Prize winners usually appear there first. From time to time, we provide useful notes on the navigators, explorers, travel accounts and voyages of discovery represented in the Hakluyt Society back list, with details of the volumes referred to, and sometimes we share posts from other Facebook pages that might interest our members.
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Winner of the Hakluyt Society Essay Competition 2025
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 [...]
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A Scientific Voyage in the Southern Hemisphere and Around the World
Volume 44 in the Hakluyt Society Third Series and the first volume distributed to members during 2025 is A 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 1817,2828, 1819, and 1820: Narrative Journal of Joseph-Paul Gaimard Commissioned Surgeon of the Marine Royal. Edited by Sylvie Brassard and John Milsom. The aims of the expedition of the French corvette Uranie, which left Toulon for a planned global circumnavigation in September 1817, were scientific. Gravity and magnetic fields were to be measured, natural history specimens were to be collected and primitive societies were […]
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Hakluyt Society Editorial Workshop
Thursday 5 September 2024 10am-4pmRoyal Asiatic Society, London This live event covered the process of preparing a Hakluyt Society volume from preparing a proposal to final publication. Sessions included: Making a publication proposal to the Society How the Hakluyt Society Council decides which proposals to accept The volume editor’s experience Nautical terms and related issues Copyright issues Sourcing images and maps for Hakluyt Society volumes
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Nelson’s Pathfinders: A Forgotten Story in the Triumph of British Sea Power
by Captain Michael Barritt RN, Past President of the Hakluyt Society ‘Your friend Capt. Johnstone is or will be confirmed.’ The First Sea Lord, Earl St Vincent, lost no time in assuring his correspondent, the eminent and influential Sir Joseph Banks. James Johnstone, recently returned from successful command of a sloop in the West Indies, was just one of the veterans of the eighteenth century Pacific voyages whose front-line employment on survey work in the wars of 1793-1815 would be urged by Banks. The mapping and charting campaigns on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America, and the exploratory voyages into the surrounding oceans, were a school for men [...]
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Winner of the Hakluyt Society Essay Competition 2024
Due to the exceptional quality of this year’s entries, the judges recommended the award of two Honourable Mentions, to Helen Hawken, Birkbeck, University of London, for ‘White Ladyes of the Pole: Nineteenth-Century British and American Women Travellers in the Arctic’ and to Samuel Cheney, University of Edinburgh, for ‘Exhausting the Ears: Aural Discomfort as Epistemological Disruption in British Travel Writing on China, c. 1860–c. 1911’. Congratulations to Graham, Helen, and Samuel. Details of how to enter the Hakluyt Society Essay Prize Competition 2025 will be announced later in the year. The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, exhibited 1881 by The Hon. John Collier (1850-1934)
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