AN EXHIBITION marking 400 years since the death of Oxford geographer Richard Hakluyt has gone on show at the city's Bodleian Library.

A selection of Elizabethan travel books and rare maps is on display at the Bodleian's Weston Library, in Broad Street, about the writer and editor, who was born in 1552 and died in 1616.

Hakluyt studied at Christ Church from 1570 to 1577 and his works promoted exploration, commerce and the colonisation of North America.

He is considered to be the first to lecture in modern geography at Oxford University.

Visitors can learn more about Hakluyt and his legacy at the free display, The World in a Book: Hakluyt and Renaissance Discovery, which is open until December 23.

Curator Anthony Payne said: "Hakluyt knew all the key explorers of the time and corresponded with famous mapmakers such as Ortelius and Mercator.

"His best-known work, The Principal Navigations of the English Nation, was the largest and most compelling travel book of that period in English, gathering together lots of material that would otherwise be lost."

The book, now on display, is a collection of English travels throughout the world, ranging from voyages in the fourth century to the exploits of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and other maritime heroes of Elizabethan England.

On Friday Dr William Poole, of New College, will give a free lecture at the Weston Library at 5.30pm, about the books that heralded the Elizabethan era of exploration.

Christ Church Library is also hosting a free exhibition, Hakluyt and Geography in Oxford 1550–1650, which runs until January 21.

For further information visit bodleian.ox.ac.uk