The publication between 1887 and 1897 of these letters from the archive of the Dutch Church at Austin Friars in London was a remarkable feat of bibliography. The archive had been deposited in 1866 with the Library Committee of the Corporation of the City of London, and in 1884 Jan Hendrick Hessels began to prepare them for the press. The letters, written in Dutch, French, English, Italian and Latin between 1524 and 1723, throw light on the religious, intellectual and political ferment of the period. Volume 1 contains the correspondence of the great Flemish map-maker Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598). Volume 2 consists of letters between members of the London church and Protestant reformers across Europe, including Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr, Heinrich Bullinger and John Foxe. Volume 3 covers topics including the Thirty Years' War and the status of foreigners in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.