ABSTRACT
Esmond de Beer (1895–1990) was a great scholar whose definitive editions of The Diary of John Evelyn and The Correspondence of John Locke demonstrated a new standard of editing. He was enormously knowledgeable about history, particularly that of the seventeenth century, literature, art, music, and indeed about many other subjects. The reason for including a biographical essay in the present volume is that he was President of the Hakluyt Society from 1972 to 1978 and a Trustee from 1978 to 1988, having first joined the Society in 1946 and become a member of its Council in 1950. He was a very generous benefactor to learned societies, libraries, museums and art galleries. Not least among those with whom he shared his knowledge, and his wealth, was the Hakluyt Society, with which he was so actively associated for over forty years. 1
