The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake: Being his Next Voyage to that to Nombre de Dios: Collated with an Unpublished Manuscript of Francis ... Library Collection - Hakluyt First Series)

by Francis Drake, Francis Fletcher, William Sandys Wright Vaux (Editor)

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India.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 account of Drake's circumnavigation of the world in 1577–1580 was first published by his nephew in 1628 and appears to derive from notes made by Francis Fletcher, the chaplain to the expedition, although a surviving manuscript account by Fletcher is not identical. The introduction to this edition (published in 1854) discusses textual problems, and also puts the narrative into the context of Drake's career as one of the privateers who carried on England's unacknowledged war with Spain in the decades before the Armada.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral, (c. 1540 – 1595) was an English privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Queen Elizabeth I awarded Drake knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, subordinate only to Charles Howard and the Queen herself. He died of dysentery after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1595.

His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a simple pirate to the Spaniards. He was known as "El Draque". (This name probably originated from the old Spanish meaning "the Dragon" derived from the Latin draco, meaning 'serpent', an obvious play on his family name which in archaic English has the same etymological root). King Philip II was claimed to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats (about £4m or $8m by modern standards) for his life.

He is famous for (among other things) sailing around the world, returning to England in 1580.

Reviews

[David Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The World Encompassed is a pack of lies and has been known to be such since the publication of the Cooke Account in the mid 19th century. Most of the text is derived from the notebook of Francis Fletcher, parson to the adventure; however, Fletcher's notes were heavily edited to cast Drake in a favorable light. Still, though, The World Encompassed remains the most important available source of information about the second circumnavigation of the world.