Anian Straits

Commander Luke Fox and his rival Tom James, a former Lord Mayor of Bristol, departed Britain on voyages of discovery in the seventeenth century. These pioneering sea captains set off across the Arctic hoping to find a trade route through the mythical Anian Straits. Their fascinating journals were originally published by the Hakluyt Society with historical background by Miller Christy in 1894, unconstrained by copyright and an excellent primary source for students and anyone interested in British History, Geography and English Literature. These original ship logs in search of the North West Passage provide a rare insight into the perils and adventure of early maritime exploration and navigation around the magnetic pole in a dangerous and unknown ocean and were most likely the inspiration for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834), “We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea.”