The perilous and most unhappy voyages of John Struys, through Italy, Greece, Lifeland, Moscovia, Tartary, Media, Persia, East-India, Japan and other places. - London,
1683
In 1676 the adventurer and sail maker Jan Janszoon Struys (1630 - after 1694) published his book 'Drie aanmerkelyke en seer rampspoedige Reysen' [Three remarkable and very disastrous journeys] with Van Someren and Van Meurs. And remarkable and disastrous they were indeed. The book was long assumed to be a fantasy. The Academy library holds the English translation of this work from 1683.
The third and final voyage by Struys lasted five years, from 1668 to 1673, and took him across Latvia, Moscovia, Tartary, Persia, and the East Indies. Struys, who had a wife and children and resided in Durgerdam, describes how in 1668 after ten years at home, he once again felt 'his ears itch' and 'his heart call him away.' When he learned that in Amsterdam Russian representatives were recruiting people to sail with the czar to Persia via the Caspian Sea, and that the pay was moreover excellent, he did not hesitate and offered his services as a chief sail maker to the czar.
Struys' book was widely acclaimed. Czar Peter the Great even commissioned a translation of the section about his experiences in Russia, and in De Boekzaal van Europe [The Reading Room of Europe], Peter Rabus praised him as 'the widely renowned traveller' in 1694.
The third and final voyage by Struys lasted five years, from 1668 to 1673, and took him across Latvia, Moscovia, Tartary, Persia, and the East Indies. Struys, who had a wife and children and resided in Durgerdam, describes how in 1668 after ten years at home, he once again felt 'his ears itch' and 'his heart call him away.' When he learned that in Amsterdam Russian representatives were recruiting people to sail with the czar to Persia via the Caspian Sea, and that the pay was moreover excellent, he did not hesitate and offered his services as a chief sail maker to the czar.
Struys' book was widely acclaimed. Czar Peter the Great even commissioned a translation of the section about his experiences in Russia, and in De Boekzaal van Europe [The Reading Room of Europe], Peter Rabus praised him as 'the widely renowned traveller' in 1694.
Title page.
Call number:
AB F 1601