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 The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India.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 volume contains an English translation of the extraordinary story of Johann Schiltberger (1381–?1440), who was captured in battle as a teenager and enslaved by Bayezid I. On the latter's defeat by Timur (Tamburlane) in 1402, Schiltberger fell into the hands of the legendary Scourge of God, and in his service and that of his sons, he travelled to Armenia, Georgia and other Caucasian territories, down the river Volga, to Siberia and to the Crimea, eventually escaping and returning to his home in 1427.
