Voyages & Discovery

We specialise in the voyages of discovery that laid the foundation of Dutch and Western European prosperity, from the late fifteenth century into the eighteenth. From the great Spanish, Portuguese and English expeditions, through the pivotal knowledge made available by Jan Huygen van Linschoten, the key to the East and the birth of the VOC, to the voyages of Barentsz, Van Noort and De Houtman. The travel accounts, maps, atlases, globes, letters and instruments created in their wake form the focus of our collection, together with the books of science that made those voyages possible: navigation, astronomy, cosmography, mathematics and natural history.