Richard Hakluyt
About Richard Hakluyt after whom the Hakluyt Society is named.
Oxford, Richard Hakluyt and the Hakluyt Society
This post was originally written for the Oxford University Pensioners' Association Newsletter, which explains its focus on Oxford, and is reproduced from the current issue with permission. Academics today are encouraged to strive for ‘impact’: they are told they should communicate with a broader public than their specialist communities and demonstrate the value of their research to society at large. Richard Hakluyt was an Oxford scholar of the Elizabethan era, who made it his business to carry his scholarship into the wider world of literature, publication, commerce and politics. He worked hard all his life in pursuit of a very particular (and, as it turned out, prescient) thesis that he [...]
Read More
Hakluyt & Oxford: Essays and Exhibitions Marking the Quatercentenary of the Death of Richard Hakluyt in 1616, edited by Anthony Payne
The booklet of 112 pages with eight coloured illustrations includes three essays based on lectures given at the various events, the catalogue notes of the two exhibitions and the conference programme, as follows: Hakluyt, Aristotle and Oxford Anthony Payne Instruments and Practical Mathematics in the Commonwealth of Richard Hakluyt Jim Bennett Richard Hakluyt: From Oxford to the Moon William Poole Richard Hakluyt and Geography in Oxford 1550–1650 An Exhibition at Christ Church Hakluyt: The World in a Book An Exhibition at the Bodleian Richard Hakluyt and the Renaissance Discovery of the World Conference Programme Anthony Payne is a past Vice-President of the Hakluyt Society, and with Daniel Carey and Claire [...]
Read More
‘World enough, and time’: Richard Hakluyt and the Renaissance Discovery of the World
England’s pioneering promoter of overseas exploration, commerce and expansion, Richard Hakluyt, assembled the largest selection of English travel accounts of the era, covering every area of activity around the globe. His book The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation is an astounding compilation of English voyages and discoveries up to his time and marks what we might call the beginnings of the great British historical adventure. It first appeared in one large c.600,000-word volume in 1589, and then in a much-expanded and updated edition in three volumes between 1598 and 1600. The second edition extended to more than 1.76 million words, containing over 600 individual accounts [...]
Read More
Looking back on Hakluyt@400
The geographer and clergyman Richard Hakluyt died in good company: 1616 also marked the death of two internationally-renowned writers, William Shakespeare and the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Shakespeare's iambic pentameter and Cervantes's re-working of chivalric romance have continued to grace school curricula and playhouses around the globe; by comparison, Hakluyt's impact is less immediately apparent. The Hakluyt Society, in conjunction with the Bodleian Library, Museum for the History of Science and Museum for the History of Science in Oxford, held a two-day conference in November 2016 to examine Hakluyt's legacy at the four-hundredth anniversary of his death. His two editions of The Principal Navigations, Traffiques, and Voiages of the [...]
Read More
‘Hakluyt and the Renaissance Discovery of the World’ – Conference Programme
Programme 24th November, the Bodleian Library 9.30AM–10.30AM arrival & coffee WESTON LIBRARY CONCOURSE SESSION 1: 10.30AM–12.15PM WESTON LIBRARY, LECTURE THEATRE Hakluyt, Oxford, & centres of power Chair: Dr Sarah Tyacke (Hakluyt Society) Prof. Sebastian Sobecki (University of Groningen): ‘Hakluyt and the Libelle of Englyshe Polycye’ Prof. David Harris Sacks (Reed College): ‘Learning to Know: The Educations of Richard Hakluyt and Thomas Harriot’. Anthony Payne (Hakluyt Society): ‘Hakluyt and Aristotle at Oxford’ 12.15PM-1.15PM lunch WESTON LIBRARY CONCOURSE SESSION 2: 1.15PM–3.00PM WESTON LIBRARY, LECTURE THEATRE Chair: Dr Will Poole (Oxford) ‘the three corners of the world’ (William Shakespeare, King John) Prof. Nandini Das (University of Liverpool): ‘Hakluyt and India’ Dr Felicity Stout [...]
Read More
Richard Hakluyt, Jacques le Moyne, and Theodore de Bry’s 1591 Engravings of Florida Timucua Indians (Part 2): The Florida Book
In his The Representation of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (1590-1634), Michiel van Groesen points out that the 1591 Florida volume, among all the volumes, is peculiar for several reasons. First, the text is the only one of the 50 narratives that does not have a version published elsewhere. The narrative instead combines portions of René de Laudonnière’s account, previously published by Richard Hakluyt, with other sources, perhaps including information provided by Jacques le Moyne. The title pages of both the Latin and German editions mention Le Moyne and Laudonnière while the German edition that was translated from the Latin edition also lists Jean Ribault [...]
Read More
Theodore de Bry, Richard Hakluyt, and the Business of Books (Part 1): De Bry’s 1591 Engravings of Florida Timucua Indians
In his 1946 book The New World, the First Pictures of America Stefan Lorant reprinted Theodore de Bry’s engravings of Florida Timucua Indians first published in 1591. Lorant included an English translation of the narrative that had accompanied the engravings in 1591. Lorant maintained that the images were based on paintings done by Jacques le Moyne, a member of a French colony on the St. Johns River in Northeast Florida in 1564-1565. He also attributed the narrative to Le Moyne. Since 1946 scholars, museum exhibition designers, and others have treated the engravings as accurate renderings of the Timucua Indians and their material culture. More than one person has referred erroneously [...]
Read More
Hakluyt@400 Quatercentenary Programme Autumn 2016
Two free exhibitions will accompany this interdisciplinary conference, both to be launched in October 2016: Hakluyt and Geography in Oxford 1550–1650 at Christ Church, Oxford, and The World in a Book: Hakluyt and Renaissance Discovery, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In addition, on Sunday 27 November there will be a commemorative service in All Saints Church, Wetheringsett, Suffolk. Read on for a detailed overview of events! Exhibitions The two free exhibitions in Oxford will run from October to December 2016. On Friday 14 October, Hakluyt and Geography in Oxford 1550–1650 will be launched at Christ Church, Hakluyt's old college, with a symposium on Renaissance scientific instruments and a reception. In November, events at Christ Church will [...]
Read More