Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia: By Anthony Jenkinson and Other Englishmen

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. The name of Anthony Jenkinson (1529-1610/11), the Elizabethan traveller and diplomat, is perhaps better known in Russia than in Britain. As agent for the Muscovy Company, he made four journeys to Russia to negotiate trade terms with Tsar Ivan IV (‘Ivan the Terrible’), and travelled as far as Persia and the Caspian Sea. This two-volume work, published in 1886, contains an account of Jenkinson’s journeys, and transcriptions of documents from the State Papers. The Victorian editors provided an introductory essay and explanatory notes.