Samuel Purchas, a vigorous self-promoter, was well aware of the significance of his publications. He described history and geography as "the two Eyes with which wee see the World," and in the preface to his Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625) he promised a grand vision: "Here therefore the various Nations, Persons, Shapes, Colours, Habits, Rites, Religions.... Languages, Letters, Arts, Merchandises, Wares, and other remarkeable Varieties of Men and humane Affaires are by Eye-witnesses related more amply and certainly then any Collector ever hath done, or perhaps without these helpes could doe." Indeed, although by his own admission Purchas never traveled more than two hundred miles from his birthplace, he assembled a collection of travel narratives more than twice as large as The Principall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1598-1600), which his predecessor Richard Hakluyt had compiled. Moreover, his publications included narratives of great...