SOURCE: Parks, George B. “The Hakluyt Legacy.” In Richard Hakluyt and the English Voyages, edited by James A. Williamson, pp. 223-29. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1928.

In the following excerpt, Parks discusses Purchas's handling and publishing of Hakluyt's materials regarding his travels.

Of Hakluyt's collections during these final years before his death in 1616 it is at length time to speak. By an arrangement which has not been fully recorded they passed to another clergyman of somewhat similar interests and were by him, though with what completeness we cannot say, included in the fourth great collection of the records of travel, Purchas His Pilgrims. … This book is Hakluyt's literary legacy. Published in 1625, it continued Hakluyt's career in the catch title of Hakluytus Posthumus.¹

One's first impression of the Reverend Samuel Purchas, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is that he distinctly lacked dignity. The tone of his prefaces...