Cathay and the Way Thither 2 Volume Paperback Set: Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China

by Henry Yule (Translator)

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. First published in 1866, this is the two-volume compilation edited by Colonel Henry Yule on contacts with China before the discovery of sea routes to the east. Yule's detailed introductory essay surveys the history of European contacts with the east, beginning with the Greek geographers and going up to the thirteenth century. He then presents the narratives of the Franciscan Odoric of Pordenone and other missionary friars in the fourteenth century.

995 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2010

About the author

Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.

He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule (1764-1839), translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840. He served in both the Sikh wars, was secretary to Colonel (afterwards Sir) Arthur Phayre's mission to Ava (1855), and wrote his Narrative of the Mission to the Court of Ava (1858).