These previously unpublished journals of England’s first voyage to India illuminate a fascinating cultural achievement: the first performances of Shakespeare outside Europe. The journals of the London East India Company voice the ambitions, divisions, and traumas of a pivotal moment in the emergence of global capitalism, as London’s merchants strived for distant markets and cultivated relationships with non-Europeans. Barbour’s commentary situates the voyage historically, describes the key personnel and writing community, examines the culture of performance at sea, and consolidates the evidence for the shipboard productions of Hamlet and Richard II.

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This volume publishes for the first time the collected journals of the East India Company's Third Voyage (1607-10), England's first to reach India, which proved pivotal to England's emergence as a global player.

This edition and translation of Las Casas's narrative, transmitted in his Historia de las Indias, of Columbus's third voyage in 1498-1500 to Trinidad and the Gulf of Paria, then on to Hispaniola, completes the coverage of the Columbian voyages contained in volumes 6 and 7 of the Repertorium Columbianum. The narrative opens on a high note with the first European sighting of the mainland of South America, Columbus's lyrical response to the beauty of its abundant flora and fauna, friendly encounters with the Indians of Paria, and intimations that the expedition might have stumbled onto the threshold of the earthly paradise. It closes, however, in a somber vein with what Las Casas aptly termed the fall of the admiral, who had been ousted from his governorship for mismanagement of the young colony and shipped home ignominiously to face an uncertain reception at the court of Fernando and Isabel. Las Casas's commentary is largely centered on moral and political issues, particularly on the contradictory implications of Columbus's actions: on the one hand as the explorer who opened up a new world for Christian evangelization, and on the other as the viceroy whose brutal and ineffective administration of this new world proved so disastrous for its indigenous inhabitants. The former he judges positively and the latter negatively, never mincing his words. Indeed, this fascinating text can be read as a dialogue between Las Casas and Columbus in which Las Casas constantly quotes the admiral's letters and then glosses them with his own observations, guided by moral and eschatological themes.

The appendix contains a record of the scientific observations, and material upon the natural history of the Arctic regions.

Book summary and author information, vocabulary builders, comprehension discussion questions, graphic organizers and writing activities, effective management ideas, reproducibles for the book Pedro's journal by Pam Conrad.