Richard Hakluyt studerte i Oxford og innførte som professor i kosmografi bruken av globuser i englelsk skoleundervisning.
Hakluyt var i 1583 som kapellan med den engelske sendemann sir Edward Stafford til Paris. Han ble i 1590 utnevnt til sogneprest i Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford i Suffolk og ble i 1603 valgt til erkedegn i Westminster Abbey.
Han viet sitt liv til studiet av de geografiske oppdagelsers historie og framla resultatet av sin forskning i flere arbeider, blant annet i Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) og hans hovedarbeide The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1598–1600; nytt opplag 1809–12).
I 1846 ble Hakluyt Society stiftet i London. Dette selskapet utgir eldre reiseskildringer.
Gray, Albert (1917). An Address on the Occasion of the Tercentenary of the Death of Richard Hakluyt, 23 November 1916: With a Note on the Hakluyt Family (OB4). London: Hakluyt Society.
Hakluyt, Richard (1964). They Told Mr. Hakluyt: Being a Selection of Tales and Other Matter Taken from Richard Hakluyt's "The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics and Discoveries of the English Nation", with Various Explanatory Notes by Frank Knight. London: Macmillan & Co.
Lynam, E[dward] (William O'Flaherty) (ed.) (1946). Richard Hakluyt & His Successors: A Volume Issued to Commemorate the Centenary of the Hakluyt Society. London: Hakluyt Society.CS1-vedlikehold: Ekstra tekst: forfatterliste (link)
Markham, Clements R[obert] (1896). Richard Hakluyt: His Life and Work: With a Short Account of the Aims and Achievements of the Hakluyt Society: An Address, etc. (OB1). London: Hakluyt Society.
Neville-Sington, P[amela] A. (1997). Richard Hakluyt and His Books: An Interim Census of Surviving Copies of Hakluyt's Divers Voyages and Principal Navigations. London: Hakluyt Society. ISBN978-0-904180-56-5.
A Reproduction of the Tablet Erected in Bristol Cathedral to the Memory of Richard Hakluyt Born 1522, Died 1616 (OB3). London: Hakluyt Society. 1911.
Sir Walter Raleigh and Richard Hakluyt: An Exhibition Held in the King's Library, British Museum, July–September 1952. [London]: [British Museum]. 1952.
Watson, Foster (1924). Richard Hakluyt. [S.l.]: The Sheldon Press.