Henry Hudson, the Navigator

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India.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 volume (1860) is a documentary biography of Henry Hudson, who was presumed dead around 1611 after being cast adrift in a small boat in Arctic waters by his mutinous crew. The documents include accounts of voyages by Hudson himself, entries from his journal, extracts from the archives of the Dutch East India Company, and the self-justificatory account of Habbakuk Prickett, one of the mutineers. An introduction puts Hudson's voyages in the context of other contemporary voyages of exploration, and assesses his achievement.