Material on Africa (Other than the Mediterranean and Red Sea Lands) and on the Atlantic Islands in the Publications of Samuel Purchas, 1613–1626

In an earlier study I described the material on Morocco, the Saharan coast, sub-Saharan Africa, and the neighboring Atlantic islands, which appeared in Richard Hakluyt's collection of English voyages, in its two editions of 1589 and 1598-1600. Up to his death in 1616 Hakluyt continued to collect additional material for an intended third edition. This material passed to Samuel Purchas (1577-1626), an Essex and then London clergyman, who had already begun to collect and publish voyage material on his own account.In 1613 Purchas published his Pilgrimage, which appeared again in progressively enlarged editions in 1614, 1617, and 1626. Pilgrimage presented a synthesis of contemporary knowledge of the outer continents, based on accounts of voyages and journeys to and descriptions of exotic lands, some of them published, others from manuscripts collected or inspected by Purchas, the whole notionally organized as a review of religious practices throughout the world. Although Pilgrimage cites a vast range of sources and sometimes quotes from them, the work is basically a summarizing of the sources in Purchas' own words. Of much greater interest, therefore, is Purchas' other major work, his masterpiece, his Pilgrimes, which appeared in 1625 in four very large volumes running to some 4000 pages. Pilgrimes is a collection of sources, on the model of Hakluyt's collection, though Purchas more frequently presents his sources in cut versions. The material covers voyages and journeys to all parts of the known world, and is not limited to English voyages--the major limitation being only the extent of material Purchas could lay his hands on.