John Thomas Baines

Ray Howgego (born London, 1946) is an independent traveller and writer who, over the past twenty years, has visited many remote parts of the world. He is author of the Encyclopedia of Exploration (Hordern House, Sydney, 2003-2008), now a standard reference source in libraries and collections throughout the world. The four volumes, which together comprise what is possibly the largest unaided single-author work in the English language, include over 4500 articles in approximately 3660 pages, some 3.8 million words. For further details see www.explorersencyclopedia.com

His The Book of Exploration, a more modestly priced, lavishly illustrated popular history of exploration, was published simultaneously in August 2009 by Weidenfeld & Nicholson (Orion Books) in the UK and Bloomsbury (Walker Publishing) in the USA, and is available from online booksellers and local bookstores throughout the world. A German translation is in preparation (Primus Verlag) and should be available in September 2010. In addition, Ray has recently completed a biography of the prolific lady traveller Gertrude Benham. Titled A very quiet and harmless traveller: Gertrude Emily Benham 1867-1938, it was published by the Plymouth Museum in July 2009 and is available from the museum's bookshop.

He is currently Consultant Editor for the forthcoming Illustrated Atlas of Exploration, to be published by Weldon Owen, Sydney, Australia, and in his spare time is working on a definitive annotated bibliography of invented, imaginary and apocryphal voyages to be published by Hordern House as the fifth volume of the Encyclopedia. He has also contributed a number of articles on 'missing explorers' to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.