Books

Three volumes, small folios; size of the bindings: 7 1/2 inches x 11 5/8 in. Volume 1: [24], 1-606 + pp. 607-620; Volume 2: [16], 312, 204 p.; Volume 3: [16], 868 p. [With: "years" reading on the title-pages of volume 1 (line 7) & 2; "years" reading in volume three. Title-page in volume two with the "Hackluyt" spelling; George Bishop, Ralph Newbery, and Robert Barker ANNO 1599. Title-page in volume three: George Bishop, Ralfe Newberie, and Robert Barker. Anno Dom. 1600. Volume 1 has the Voyage to Cadiz: pp. 607-620. This is a circa 1720 reprint (This is comparable to the copy in the H. Kraus' Drake Collection; and see STC: Short Title Catalog, second edition; p. 553; #3). The average page size is: 7 1/4 inches x 11 3/8 in. Woodcut initials; without the map, which is lacking in most copies. Bound in full old calf with five raised bands on the spines, and red leather title labels and black leather volume number labels in the second and third compartments, with gilt titles: HAKLUYT'S VOYAGES. The volume number labels show two, gilt leaf forms; the other compartments have gilt borders, and small diamond and star forms, with decorated gilt borders around the cover margins, decorated gilt on the cover edges; sprinkled edges; red marbled endpapers. These 18th-century calf bindings show some wear to the spine ends and cover corners, with cracking to the front hinges on volumes one and three; the front cover hinge of volume one is cracked. The set is preserved in a brown, textured cloth-covered slipcase with a black cloth pull to help remove the volumes. This is a set with no restorations to the bindings, title-pages, or other leaves; there is no evidence of any paper or marginal repairs. There is an early ink notation that the "Voyage to Cadiz" is present, this is at the end of volume one. The title-pages each bear an embossed institutional stamp, and with the institutional sold stamp in the lower margins of the final pages. The title-pages' edges show some wear, but do not show any paper repairs or remounting. The first volume shows three bookplates on the front paste-down: Thomas Dampier (1748-1812), who was Bishop of Ely, and book collector, and a smaller one with the initials: D.D., and motto: Essayez with a closed belt design (Duke of Devonshire), and an institutional bookplate. Volumes 2 & 3 show the Devonshire & institutional bookplates. This first volume shows a partially obscured ink inscription by an earlier owner: Arthurus Lovett his book 1647, on p. *2 and a Latin inscription at the end of the text of volume two: Peregrinius ut apes non ut arachnae. R Ingud (?). The title-page in volume one, shows some inked initials: HP, in the upper margin, and other small inked initials and marks, penciled numbers on the reverse of the title-pages. Volume Three shows some light pencil underlining to some of the texts, a stain to the lower margin of pp. 166-167, slight worming to lower margins of pp. 697-789. The pages show very little of the typical cropping. Hakluyt's Voyages is among the most famous group of English travels and voyages; Hakluyt was the inspiration for The Hakluyt Society, founded in 1846. It is difficult to overrate the importance and value of this extraordinary collection of voyages. Mr. Bancroft characterizes "Richard Hakluyt as the enlightened friend and able documentary historian of these commercial enterprises, a man whose fame should be vindicated and asserted in the land which he helped to colonize," while Oldys, in his British Library, devotes fifty pages to an analysis of his works, and remarks that his collection "redounds as much to the glory of the English nation as any book that ever was published," and Mr. Dibdin is in an ecstasy of delight in his famous passage, beginning "All hail to thee, Richard Hakluyt,"[in The Library Companion, 1824]; -From Sabin's Dictionary. Sabin: Vol. 7; pp. 544-546; STC 12626a (Vol. 1; pp. 554-553). PMM 105; pp.63-64. Church 322; Vol. 2, pp. 752-758. Weight: 12 lbs. Seller.

A compilation of various narratives detailing the voyages and discoveries made by the English nation.