History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India.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 two-volume account by Juan Gonzàlez de Mendoza of the history and geography of China was translated into English in 1588. It was the first detailed account of China available in English, though the introduction to this 1853 edition reviews several earlier descriptions by western travellers. Mendoza did not himself visit China; his sources were the papers of Martin de Rada and of Pedro de Alfaro, respectively Augustinian and Franciscan missionary friars.