Volume I: This is translated from the Portuguese Edition of 1774, with Notes and an Introduction. Volume II: This is translated from Part ii of the Portuguese Edition of 1774, with Notes and an Introduction. Volume III: Part iii of the 1774 edition. With descriptions of Malacca and Goa translated from Pedro Barretto de Resende's Livro do Estado da India Oriental. The supplementary material consists of the 1880 annual report. Volume IV: Part iv of the 1774 edition. With Portuguese descriptions of places and fortresses in Portuguese India, and a pedigree of Albuquerque from British Library MSS. With an index to all four volumes. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volumes first published in 1875,1877, 1880 and 1884.

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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Volumes 53, 55, 62 and 69 of the series contain the English translation of The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, translated and edited by Walter de Grey Birch. Afonso de Albuquerque (1453-1515) was a Portuguese naval officer and nobleman whose successful military campaigns helped establish Portugal's colonies in India. Volume 1, published in 1875, contains an account of de Albuquerque's expeditions to India from 1503 to 1509 and his first conquest of Ormuz (modern Hormuz Island, Iran).