A True Description of Three Voyages by the North-East towards Cathay and China
Undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594, 1595 and 1596

Eye-witness accounts of three adventurous Arctic voyages in search of a route to China in the late sixteenth century.

Gerrit de Veer (Author), William Phillip (Translated by), Charles T. Beke (Edited by)

9781108008464, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 April 2010

512 pages, 12 b/w illus. 4 maps
21.6 x 14 x 2.9 cm, 0.64 kg

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This book contains three accounts of Dutch voyages in search of a north-eastern passage to China, undertaken in the 1590s. (When this Hakluyt edition was published in 1853, continuing anxiety about the fate of Sir John Franklin's expedition made any accounts of Arctic exploration extremely topical.) The Dutch were not successful in establishing a north-east passage; but the stories of the expeditions and of the courage and endurance of the men who took part in them make for fascinating reading.

Introduction
Dedication
1. Navigation into the north seas
2. A brief declaration of a second navigation
3. The third voyage northward
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH]