A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 10: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time.

In 1519, five ships sailed from Seville into the unknown. Three years later, one returned. Such was the nature of Ferdinand Magellan's quest to circumnavigate the globe, and such is the drama that opens this remarkable 1811 compilation. Robert Kerr gathered accounts of the age's most audacious navigators, weaving their stories into a tapestry of mutiny, starvation, frozen seas, and extraordinary courage. The volume traces the first circumnavigation not as mere dates and coordinates, but as a human ordeal: men driven past reason, navigating waters no European had seen, dying for the chance to prove the world was round. Kerr's collection moves beyond Magellan to encompass Sir Francis Drake and subsequent explorers, charting how these voyages transformed humanity's understanding of its own planet. Written in an age when the final frontiers were still being mapped, this history carries the breathless conviction of a world still being discovered. For readers who wonder what drove men to sail off the edge of maps, Kerr provides an answer written in the language of their own time.