John Barrow was a British geographical compiler.

Life

His first work was a geographical dictionary, which was published in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 anonymously, as was also (in 1756) the first edition of his principal work, A Chronological Abridgment or History of the Discoveries made by Europeans in the different parts of the world.

The second edition of the latter compilation appeared in 1765, and was so successful that in the year following a French translation, by Targe

Targe

Targe was a general word for shield in late Old English. Its diminutive, target, came to mean an object to be aimed at in the 18th century....

, was published in Paris, in twelve volumes.

In his introduction, Barrow shows a considerable knowledge of astronomical geography, so far as relates to the finding of latitude and longitude by the stars.
The French translation seems to have had more repute than the original work, but even in France Barrow's History of Discoveries was in a few years superseded by that of the Abbé Prévost.

The voyages selected by Barrow are those of Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

, Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...

, Cabral

Gonçalo Velho

Gonçalo Velho Cabral was a Portuguese monk and Commander in the Order of Christ, explorer and hereditary landowner responsible for administering Crown lands on the same islands, during the Portuguese Age of Discovery.-Biography:He was son of...

, Sir Francis Drake

Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...

, Sir Walter Raleigh

Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England....

, Sir Thomas Cavendish

Thomas Cavendish

Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe...

, Olivier van Noort

Olivier van Noort

Olivier van Noort was the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world.Olivier van Noort was born in 1558 in Utrecht. He left Rotterdam on 2 July 1598 with four ships and a plan to attack Spanish possessions in the Pacific and to trade with China and the Spice Islands...

, Joris van Spilbergen

Joris van Spilbergen

Joris van Spilbergen was a Dutch naval officer of the 17th century.His first major expedition was in 1596, when he sailed to Africa....

, Abel Tasman

Abel Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...

, William Dampier

William Dampier

William Dampier was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer...

, Lionel Wafer

Lionel Wafer

Lionel Wafer was a Welsh explorer, buccaneer and privateer.A ship's surgeon, Wafer made several voyages to the South Seas and visited the Malay archipelago in 1676. The following year he settled in Jamaica to practise his profession...

, Woodes Rogers

Woodes Rogers

Woodes Rogers was an English sea captain, privateer, and, later, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas. He is known as the captain of the vessel that rescued the marooned Alexander Selkirk, whose plight is generally believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.Rogers came from an...

, Francisco de Ulloa

Francisco de Ulloa

Francisco de Ulloa was a Spanish explorer who explored the west coast of present-day Mexico under the commission of Hernán Cortés...

, Lord Anson

George Anson, 1st Baron Anson

Admiral of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson PC, FRS, RN was a British admiral and a wealthy aristocrat, noted for his circumnavigation of the globe and his role overseeing the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War...

, Henry Ellis

Henry Ellis (governor)

Henry Ellis was an explorer, author, and a colonial governor of Georgia.Ellis was born in County Monaghan, Ireland. He was educated in law at the Temple Church in London. In May 1746, he went out as agent of a company for the discovery of the Northwest Passage...

, and others.

He died at the end of the eighteenth century.