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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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This history of China derives mainly from the writings of the Flemish Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), who was sent as a missionary to China, and eventually, despite violent opposition, became Head of the Mathematical Board and Director of the Beijing Observatory for the Kangxi Emperor. The introduction to this 1854 edition sketches the life of Verbiest and discusses the sources of the text; an appendix gives a description by Verbiest himself of a hunting expedition on which he accompanied the emperor.
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