A rare second edition copy of Richard Hakluyt's Voyages is to auction at Sotheby's London on September 30 with a £180,000-240,000 ($298,755-398,340) estimate.

The lot will cross the block in the second part of the Exploration and Discovery 1576-1939: The Library of Franklin Brooke-Hitching sale.

Hakluyt was a vocal supporter of the British colonisation of North America

The three volume work is titled "The principal navigations, voiages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation, made by sea or over-land, to the remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth…and the famous victorie actchieved at the citie of Cadiz (1598-1599-1600)".  

It contains details of the exploits of some of the most famous British sailors of the Elizabethan era, including Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.

Hakluyt (1553-1616) was an ordained priest, scholar and cheerleader for the colonisation of North America who lived out his final years as prebend of Bristol Cathedral.

His books proved a rich source of material for other writers, including Shakespeare.

The lot includes the newly published Wright-Molyneux world map, which appears in very few copies (the last time an example sold at auction was in 1932).

A first edition of Matthew Flinders' Observations on the Coast of Van Diemen's Land (1801) is valued at £150,000-200,000 ($248,962-331,950).

Captain Flinders (1774-1814) was the first to circle Australia and confirm that it was a continent.

The book is one of the scarcest early studies of the Antipodes and is one of only two copies to feature its original charts.

The sale will also include a copy of Ernest Shackleton's Aurora Australis.

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