author
Francis Pretty
A firsthand chronicler of Elizabethan sea adventure, this little-known English diarist left one of the vivid surviving accounts of a round-the-world voyage. His writing offers a rare eyewitness view of danger, discovery, and life at sea in the late 1500s.
1 Audiobook
Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World
by Francis Pretty
About the author
Francis Pretty was an English gentleman from Suffolk who is remembered as a diarist, sailor, and man-at-arms. He is best known for recording Thomas Cavendish's late-16th-century circumnavigation, giving later readers a direct account of a major voyage from the age of exploration.
His narrative survived even though reports of the expedition were reportedly suppressed for a time. Parts of his account circulated in print through later collections of voyages, which helped preserve his place in travel writing and maritime history.
Very little seems to be known for certain about his personal life compared with the voyage itself. What has lasted is the value of his eyewitness writing: practical, adventurous, and important to historians interested in early English seafaring.