Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (c.1460s-1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.

His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada, launched in 1500 under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Kozhikodeand setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. A local dispute caused a riot and the destruction of the factory, thus war broke out between Portugal and Kozhikode. The expedition turned into a punitive one, and Gama bombarded Calicut (Kozhikode) and cut the hands, ears and noses of any merchant crew he captured leaving or entering the city. However Gama failed to suppress the Zamorin and the expedition was deemed a failure. The third voyage was Gama's chance to redeem himslef. He set off to Portuguese India but died But da Gama died from malaria shortly after arriving in Cochin.

Gama's brutality tainted his legacy but the Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.

First English edition, Hakluyt Society First Series, XLII; 8vo (22.5 x 15 cm); 3 plates including frontispiece, plan, ex libris Inner Temple Library with bookplates and stamps, withdrawn stamp to titles, a couple of gathering hinges a little weak, clean internally; original publisher's gilt blue cloth, slightly dampstained boards, spine a little darkened with a couple of chips to head, a good copy; ccxviii, [2], 292pp.