Richard Eden (translator)

Richard Eden (fl. 1553-1555) was an English translator and compiler, notable for his contributions to introducing early English readers to European accounts of the New World.

Eden's most significant work was his translation and adaptation of several continental works into English, particularly those dealing with exploration and discovery. He is best known for A treatyse Of the newe India, with other new founde landes and Ilandes, as well eastwarde as westwarde, as they are knowen and founde in these oure dayes, after the descripcion of Sebastian Munster in his boke of universall Cosmographie: wherin thou mayest see the discripcion of many goodlye and ryche countreyes, that of late dayes have ben newly founde, and also see the maners and customes of the inhabitauntes of the same, and likewise see the most strange beastes, birdes, fysshes, foules, wormes, and venemous beastes that are in the same: most pleasaunte for to reade (1553), which was largely a translation of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia. However, Eden added his own commentary and material from other sources, making it more than a simple translation.

Eden's writings and translations played a crucial role in shaping English perceptions of the Americas and other newly explored regions during the Tudor period. He was instrumental in popularizing geographical and ethnographical information, albeit often filtered through his own perspectives and the biases present in his source materials. He served as a point of dissemination for knowledge pertaining to the early age of exploration.

He followed this work with The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India conteynyng the navigations and conquestes of the Spanyardes, with the particular description of the most ryche Ilandes and contrey of the late founde West India (1555). This was a translation of parts of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera’s De Orbe Novo Decades, supplemented by extracts from other writers such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and others involved in the early Spanish exploration of the Americas.