Ongeluckige voyagie van het schip Batavia uytgevaren onder’t beleydt van den E. Francois Pelsaert, na Oost-Indien, en gebleven is op de Abrollos van Frederick Houtman, … Verhalende ‘t verongelucken de

A$55,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Amsterdam : Gillis Joosten Saeghman, [c.1663]. Small quarto, later half vellum over marbled boards (rubbed), manuscript title to spine; ex libris bookplates to front pastedown and endpaper; pp. 44, title page with woodcut vignette (paper repair to the gutter), and allegorical woodcut verso; a further 6 copperplate vignette illustrations in the text, which is printed in two columns with occasional side notes; some pale foxing, but a very good example. A rare early illustrated edition of Pelsaert s account of the wreck of the Batavia . The story of the shipwreck of the Batavia remains one of the most compelling in all maritime history. In 1629, the VOC ship Batavia , under the command of François Pelsaert, was wrecked on Morning Reef on the Houtman Abrolhos off the West Australian coast, during her maiden voyage from the Netherlands to Batavia, Java. She had over 300 passengers aboard, mainly settlers, merchants and their families, of whom 40 drowned while attempting to reach shore. The survivors were grouped on two small desolate islands, while Pelsaert and his crew searched the shore on the mainland for a fresh water supply, to no avail. Faced with disaster, Pelsaert and a few companions sailed by longboat along the West Australian coastline and north across the Indian Ocean to the settlement at Batavia, a remarkable feat of navigation which took 33 days and was achieved without fresh supplies. The Batavian Governor General gave Pelsaert command of a rescue vessel, the Saarda

• Binding: Hardcover

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