ABSTRACT
The Russian historian Joseph Hamel pointed out that a change in the Tsar's titles gratuitously introduced in the second edition led Karamzin to state that Muscovy laid claim to sovereignty over Astrakhan and Lithuania several years earlier than the facts warrant. The actual additions of 1598–1600 amount to about a third as much again over the Muscovy material in 1589. They include material from literary sources, e.g. the 'Genealogy of the Emperor of Muscovy ', a large slice of G. Fletcher's Kusse commonwealth, and the extracts from Herberstein. By the time that Richard Hakluyt was preparing materials for the second edition Fletcher's book had long since been both published, and sup-pressed at the instigation of the Muscovy Company. To draw attention to the out-standing feature of the materials relating to Muscovy that Hakluyt provides – their adequacy both in number, content, and genre.
