1 Purchas, Samuel, Purchas his Pilgrimes (4 vols.; London 1625Google Scholar; reprint Glasgow 1905–1907; 12 vols.). To a Purchas Handbook, being edited for the Hakluyt Society by Loren E. Penning ton, I am contributing an analysis of Purchas' material on Africa; and a version supplying more Africanist detail is to be found in Hair, P. E. H., ‘Material on Africa (other than the Mediterranean and Red Sea lands) and on the Atlantic Islands in the publications of Samuel Purchas, 1613–1626’,History in Africa 13 (1986) 117–159CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Purchas spoke justly of ‘this whole worke of Voyages, in which and of which the Dutch are so great a part […] [In] the glory of Navigation they are so neere us, and worthy to be honoured’ (Pilgrimes I, 461). However, publishingjust after the Amboina ‘Massacre’ became known in England, he apologised for quoting Dutch material which challenged England's overseas claims, and confessed that ‘for this cause I have omitted some odious Greenland Relations’ (Pilgrimes, ‘A Note touching the Dutch’, inserted after ‘To the Reader’; also cf. Ibidem I, 1858).

2 See Parker, John, Books to Build an Empire (Amsterdam 1965)Google Scholar which lists and discusses publications on the overseas world in English, up to 1620. Although the Dutch preceded the English in making regular voyages to the East, the English pioneered the search for North-East and North-West passages, as was recognised by the Netherlands cartographer, Gerard Mercator, in his 1569 ‘testimonie touching the notable discoveries of the English’ and in his 1580 letter to Hakluyt (both translated in Hakluyt, Richard, Principall Navigations (London 1589); facsimile reprint Hakluyt Society; (London 1965) 483–485, 501)Google Scholar.

3 P.A. Tiele, Memoire bibliographique sur les journaux des navigaleurs néerlandais (Amsterdam 1867; reprint 1960); Th, J.. and Bry, J. I. de, America (13 parts; Frankfort 1590–1634)Google Scholar, usually termed ‘Grand Voyages’; Th, J.. and Bry, J. I. de, India Orientalis (12 parts; 1598–1628)Google Scholar, usually termed ‘Petits Voyages’ (fora list of both series, see Tiele, Memoire, 2–3); Camus, , Mémoire sur la collection des grands et petits voyages (Paris 1802);Google Scholar[Commelin, Isaac], Begin ende voortgangh van de Vereenighde. Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-lndische Compagnie (Amsterdam 1645Google Scholar and 1646; facsimile reprint, 4 vols., 1970, with an introduction by C.R. Boxer in an accompanying booklet). In the checklist below, references are also supplied, in the case of Dutch pamphlets, to Knuttel, W. P. C., Catalogus van depamfletten-veizameling berustende in de Konink lijke Bibliotheek ('s-Gravenhage 1889–1930Google Scholar; reprint Utrecht 1978); in the case of English publications to Jackson, W. et al. ed., A Short-Title Catalogue (2nd ed.; London 1976, 1986); and in the case of anonymous English publications difficult to trace in the British Library catalogue, to their call-numbers in that library. Statements in the checklist about the exact relationship between Dutch accounts and the versions that appeared in other languages than English derive mainly from Tiele and in a few instances should probably be accepted with some cautionGoogle Scholar.

4 The Linschoten-Vereeniging edition of the accounts of the first Dutch voyage to the East (see no. 4 in the checklist) is exceptional in that it notes errors in the English translations. In respect of translations, it is worth noting that not only was a single translator, William Phillip, responsible for many of the earlier translations, but that a single publisher, John Wolfe, published the items mentioned in nos. 1, 3, and 4 of the checklist.

5 The checklist limits itself to noting those editions (but not mere reprints) of accounts in Dutch, and those versions of the Dutch accounts appearing in languages other than English, which (a) in either case not only preceded contemporary English translations, but (b) were also the sources either of these English translations or of references in Pilgrimes. However, it also notes a few later non-English translations in cases where this indicates the priority of the English version. The checklist covers the major Dutch overseas voyages of the period. Purchas had already made use of material from Dutch voyages sources in his Pilgrimage, in its editions of 1613, 1614, and 1617, a work which sometimes supplies more specific references to sources than does Pilgrimes (both in marginal citations and in its bibliography). In intention, Pilgrimes is a collection of sources whereas Pilgrimage is a summary of sources, but in practice the distinction between a source abridged and a source summarised can be slight; however the present checklist does not claim to derive from an exhaustive search of Pilgrimage. The Dutch sources of Pilgrimes inevitably include some which are not voyage accounts and are therefore not eligible for this checklist. Exceptionally, the list includes items 1 and 27, which are not strictly accounts of Dutch voyages but are closely related material; while it excludes general material on Dutch trade in the East (e.g. the citations in Pilgrimes I, 718–720, 722–723). Finally, listing of Dutch sources becomes less straightforward after 1621, because of the emergence in England of a flood of regular newsletters and newsbooks, many of which contain unacknowledged translated extracts from, or summaries of, Dutch sources. I have not searched extant and accessible news prints, and instead cite items from the titles listed in Dahl, Folke, A Bibliography of English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks 1620–1642 (London 1952)Google Scholar.

6 Arber, E., A Transcript of the Register of the Company of Stationers of London III (London 1876). The registered title and the subsequently published title of works are occasionally so different that in such cases an entry in the Short-Title Catalogue may be over-confident in equating one with the other, without indicating a measure of doubt.Google Scholar

7 I am much indebted to Dr Anna Simoni and Dr Ernst van den Boogaart for their informed comments on a draft of this checklist and for their additional information; and to Dr A.R.A. Croiset van Uchelen of the Universiteits-Bibliotheek in Amsterdam for making inquiries among marine historians in Holland concerning the mysterious item no. 23 of the checklist.