Dampier's (1651-1715) adventures and writing inspired both Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels, but in his own right he was a remarkable, observant and enjoyable writer - whether on a woefully mishandled pirate raid in Spanish America or on a desperate journey to Sumatra in an open boat or on the habits of manatees or bats. He also left the first description in English of the Aborigines of Australia - thus initiating a painful, now three centuries' long encounter between peoples on opposite sides of the world. "Great Journeys" allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

Piracy, Turtles and Flying Foxes (Penguin Great Journeys)

Dampier, William

Travel

Penguin??Books

New Voyage Round the World

History

World

Penguin Classics

A New Voyage Round the World

Franklin Classics

It was William Dampier's passion to see the world that turned him into a buccaneer. He possessed remarkable powers of observation and analysis, and his life as a seventeenth-century navigator aboard pirate and privateering ships is brilliantly detailed in his journal. Throughout his travels of Central and South America and the East Indies, Dampier provides riveting accounts of sea battles against Spanish treasure ships, as well as pirate life, lore, and customs. Originally published in 1697 as the New Voyage, his journal became an instant success, and has been read ever since as one of the greatest travel and adventure accounts ever written. But Memoirs of a Buccaneer is far more than historical adventure. Dampier was a man of intelligence and education with a strong naturalist's urge, and his book quickly became a vital source of information on the geology, biology, zoology, and peoples of the lands he visited. His descriptions of the West Indian manatee, booby birds, cacao, and mangrove trees—flora and fauna never before heard of in England and the Continent—are incredibly accurate. His notes on the produce of Guam and Mindanao—coconuts, vanilla beans, bananas, breadfruit, and more—exerted a powerful influence on Britain's explorations and colonizations. And his depictions of Central America's Mosquito Indians and the natives of Mindanao proved to be highly reliable. The influence of this classic book on the work of later travelers is incalculable, leading writers such as Defoe, Swift, and Coleridge to borrow both facts and literary style from it. It continues to inspire readers today.

Memoirs of a Buccaneer: Dampier's New Voyage Round the World, 1697 (Dover Maritime)

Biographies & Memoirs

Travelers & Explorers

Dover Publications

This famous book, first published in 1929 was considerably revised and enlarged in its fourth edition, which is being reprinted now. This edition had the addition of a postscript by Professor I. Bernard Cohen containing a list of reading, with comments on them to guide the readers.

A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion

Science & Math

History & Philosophy

Cambridge University Press

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

A Voyage to New Holland

Europe

BiblioLife

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Books by Dampier, William