t, hăk`əlwĭt), 1552?–1616, English geographer. He graduated in 1574 from Oxford, where he later lectured on geography. A passionate interest in the history of discovery led him to collect and publish narratives of voyages and travels. He was active in promoting English discovery and colonization, especially in North America. His chief work, called by J. A. Froude "the prose epic of the English nation," is The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation (3 vol., 1598–1600), an enlargement of a one-volume version (1589). Other publications include Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America and the Islands Adjacent (1582) and an account of the discoveries of Hernando De Soto under the title Virginia Richly Valued (1609). Manuscripts left at his death were included by Samuel Purchas in his Pilgrims (4 folios, 1625); others are preserved at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The publication of narratives of early explorations has been continued by the Hakluyt Society, founded in 1846.
Bibliography
See The Original Writings and Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts (1935, repr. 1967).
Hakluyt, Richard
(born c. 1552, London, Eng.?—died Nov. 23, 1616, England) British geographer. A clergyman, he gave public lectures and became the first professor of modern geography at the University of Oxford. He became acquainted with the most important sea captains and merchants of England and took on the role of publicist for explorers. In 1583 he was sent to Paris as chaplain to the English ambassador and also served as an intelligence officer, collecting information on the Canadian fur trade and on other overseas enterprises. His major publication, The principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation (1589), described the early English voyages to North America. After 1600 he advised Elizabeth I on colonial affairs, and in 1612 he became a charter member of the Northwest Passage Company.
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