Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 15

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Kees Boterbloem
‘Met een beschaafder Penne...’
The Making of Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen: A Case of Early Modern Ghostwriting

Despite the appearance of his name on its cover and in the introduction, the North-Holland sailmaker and sailor Jan Struys (c. 1629-c. 1694) could hardly have written the very successful book Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige Reysen door Italien, Griekenlandt, Lijflandt, Moscovien, Tartarijen, Meden, Persien, Oost-Indien, Japan, en verscheyden andere Gewesten that appeared in Amsterdam in 1676 (see figures 1 and 2), for he was illiterate at the time of his second marriage in 1668.¹ Instead, the anonymous author for whom Struys fronted was a skilled writer who had previously proved his mettle for one of the two publishers, Jacob van Meurs (1617/18-1680). By means of this new book, this author was able to continue the project of a chorographic overview of Africa and Asia upon which he and other authors publishing with Van Meurs and company had embarked in the middle of the 1660s.²

Reysen is both adventure tale and chorography, which renders an account of the travels undertaken by the sailmaker Jan Struys to the Far East, Mediterranean, Muscovy, and Iran between 1647 and 1673.³ The work pays particularly attention to parts of the world less familiar to Dutch contemporary readers, such as Madagascar, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, the Aegean Sea, the Volga river, Livonia, or the Caucasus and

1 J.J. Struys, Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige Reysen (..). Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs en Johannes van Someren, 1676 (From here: Reysen) Licenses for the banns of weddings (of 1658 and 1668) in Amsterdam involving a Jan Janszoon Struys, varensgezel, may be found in the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, Doop, Trouw- en Begrafenisregister 478, page 462 and 491, page 11. No other Jan Janszoon Struys, sailor, can be found for this period in this archive; apart from being identified as a mariner, the age of the groom is that of Struys the protagonist of Reysen. To gain an idea of the Reysen's success, the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg today still has 23 editions of the book (two books may be the same original Durch version of 1676) in its collection: five in Dutch, eleven in French, four in German and two in English, see www.nlr.ru/rlin/Rossican.php. In the 1930s the first integral Russian translation was published (A. Morozov, ed., Tri puteshestvua Ia.Ia. Streis. Moskva 1935). See further the Appendix below

2 Chorography: A work which attempts to systematically describe a country or region (countries, regions), following the method of the Greek geographer Ptolemaeus (see S. Mund, Orbis Russiarum Genèse et développement de la représentation du monde ‘russe’ en Occident à la Renaissance Genève 2003, 171)

3 Following Marijke Barend-van Haaften's categones, it should be called a ‘reisbeschrijving’ (see G Verhoeven, P. Verkruijsse, ‘De vele gezichten van Bontekoe,’ in G. Verhoeven, P. Verkruijsse [eds], Iournael ofte Gedenckwaedige beschrrjvinghe vande Oost-Indische Reyse van Willem Ysbrantsz. Bontekoe van Hoorn Zutphen 1996, 35-79. 39).

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Figure 1: Frontispiece to Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen. A man being shot with arrows while tied to a tree, some Persians watching; the book title is framed by stripped human skin. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 893 E 2

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Figure 2: Titlepage to Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 893 E 2

Iran. The tale of Struys's progress is regularly interrupted by exegeses about the exotic cultures and environment of these regions. By far the most pages are dedicated to his third journey (which started in September 1668 and lasted until October 1673), which takes Struys from Riga via Moscow, Astrakhan, Isfahan, and Bandar-e-Abbas to Batavia⁴ (see fig. 3). The adventurous quality of the sailmaker's trials and tribulations really comes alive (among other things, he is enslaved by Dagestani) when he wanders in the borderlands of the tsar's and shah's empires in this third section. Even in this part, nonetheless, the static descriptive parts about foreign societies and flora and fauna still take up considerable space.

4 This is underlined by the inclusion in Reysen of two letters that complement Struys's account of the harrowing adventures that befell the Dutch crew (of which Struys was part) at Astrakhan and in the Caucasus (see ‘Extract uyt een Brief,’ in: Reysen, 1-4, and David Butler, ‘Extract Uyt den Brief,’ in: Reysen, 5-34). These are placed at the beginning of the book and have a separate page numbering.

A capitalist venture

Jan Struys's role in the creation of the book was however greater than just lending his name to Reysen. Struys provided the Ur-narrative framework of the book, by telling his

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stories for a fee to someone wielding ‘a more polished pen than mine’ (‘een beschaafder Penne, als de mijne’), who readied them for print.⁵ Struys's rationale in doing this was purely economic, understandable for someone living in a country in which most of the indigent and elderly were dependent on charity. In 1675 and 1676, when he recounted his voyages, Struys faced an uncertain future for, despite all his strenuous travel, he had not been able to save any substantial means to provide for his old age: telling his tale for a fee was for Jan Struys a way to receive a kind of (modest) pension.

Van Meurs and his partner Johannes van Someren († 1678) appear to have recognized that Struys's stories could serve as the narrative framework of a book more exciting than previous installments of Van Meurs's endeavour to publish a cosmographic overview of the entire non-European world, of which the last issue, Olfert Dapper's Asia, had appeared in 1672.⁶ Van Meurs had issued lavishly engraved folio-sized books by Dapper (1639-1689) and Arnoldus Montanus (c. 1625-1683) on Africa, the Americas, and parts of Asia, but some regions remained to be described, such as the huge landmass of today's Russian Republic, while other areas had been presented in a rather sketchy manner.⁷ Concomitantly, the Republic's economie hardship resulting from the wars with Louis xiv's France, Stuart England and the Imperial bis hops of Cologne and Münster, had made readers reluctant to purchase expensive folio editions of the kind produced by Van Meurs earlier, and stalled the completion of the series.⁸ Van Meurs seems to have been saved from this impasse in 1675 when Johannes van Someren published on his own the fairly brief account of the ship wreek of the Dutch ship Ter Schelling in the Gulf of Bengal that appeared in 1675 under the name of Frans Janszoon van der Heiden, a book that sold out quickly.⁹ In September of the same year, Van Meurs and Van Someren successfully petitioned the Estates of Holland for a copyright licence for fifteen years for three books that entailed:

5 ‘Voorreden aan de Lesers,’ in: Reysen, 2. Evidence of Struys's odyssey may be found in various archives (see for instance Rossusku Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov (Moscow) fond 50, delo 42 (1668), listy 1-4, 41-46; Arkheograficheskaia kommissia, Dopolnenua k aktam istoncheskim. Vol. 5 Sankt-Peterburg' 1853, 211-284; Nationaal Archief (Netherlands), VOC Archief, Generale Missiven: Batavia to Heeren xvii, 19 december 1671, 775-776) and in Historisch Verhael of Beschryving van de Voyagie gedaan onder de Suite van den Heere Koenraad van Klenck. Amsterdam: Jan Claesz. ten Hoorn, 1677, written by Balthasat Coyett. See my forthcoming The Fiction and Reality of Jan Struys. A Seventeenth-Century Dutch Globetrotter Houndsmills 2008 or 2009.

6 O Dapper, Asia of Naukeurige Beschryving van het Rijk des Grooten Mogols en een groot gedeelte van Indien (..) Amsterdam: J van Meurs, 1672. A cosmography is a text endeavouring to present an encompassing overview of the human societies and nature across the globe.

7 O. Dappet, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten (...). Amsterdam. Van Meurs, 1668; A. Montanus, Gedenkwaerdige gesantschappen der Oost-Indische Maetschappy in 't Vereenigde Nederland, aen de kaisaren van Japan (.). Amsterdam: J van Meurs, 1669; O Dapper, Gedenkwaerdig Bedryf der Nederlandsche Oostindische Maatschappye (..). Amsterdam: J. van Meurs, 1670; A. Montanus, De Nieuwe en onbekende weereld: of Beschryving van America en 't zuid-land, vervaetende d'oorsprong der Americaenen en zuid-landers (...). Amsterdam. Van Meurs, 1671; Dapper, Asia.

8 Indicative of this downturn, 250 copies of Dapper's folio-sized description of Africa's second edition of 1676 were still in stock two years later (O. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten (.) Second ed Amsterdam. Van Meurs, 1676; see A. Jones, ‘Olfert Dapper et sa description de l'Afrique,’ m: Objets interdits. Paris 1989, 72-81, 76). Van Meurs may also have had a surplus of expensive engravings for which he had not recovered the costs (my thanks to Maria Smolenaars for this point)

9 Frans Jansz van der Hei[ij-y]den, Vervarelyke schip-breuk van't Oost-Indisch jacht ter Schelling, onder het landt van Bengale.

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Figure 3. View on Gammeron (Bandar-e-'Abbas), the Iranian port on the Persian Gulf and location of a seventeenth-century voc factory. Plate after p. 364 in Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 893 E 2

Drie Voyagien na Oost-Indiën, en andere Gedeelten des Werelts: soo Moscovien, Tartarijen, Persien, gedaan door Mr. Wouter Schouten van Haarlem. De tweede door Jan Jansz. Struys; en de derde door Frans Jansz. vander Heyden: waar in verhaalt worden veele aanmerkelijke en seldsame voorvallen, grouwelijke Zee-stormen en Schipbreuke, ongemeene uytgestane perijkelen en hongersnooden, Zee- en Landt-gevechten, bestormen en veroveren van Steden, harde slavernije, en wonderlijke verlossinge uyt deselve, mitsgaders een kort verhaal van de wetten en zeden van yder der selve Natie.¹⁰

Van Meurs joined Van Someren in republishing Van der Heyden and in publishing two lenghtier accounts attesting further to the trials and tribulations of Dutch seafarers in their far-flung journeys.¹¹ Whereas the formula of presenting a personalized tale about

10 Reysen, frontmatter.

11 The third book mentioned in preparation here was W Schouten, Oost Indische Voyagie, Vervattende veel voorname voorvallen en ongemeene vreemde geschiedenissen, bloedige Zee- en Landt-gevechten tegen de Portugeesen en Makassaren (...). Amsterdam: J. van Meurs and J. van Someren, 1676, recently republished in modern Dutch (M. Breet, De Oost-Indische Voyagie van Wouter Schouten. Zutphen 2003). Van Meurs and van Someren became partners in 1675, when they also published L. van den Bos, Tooneel des oorlogs, opgerecht in de Vereenigde Nederlanden (..). 4 vols. Amstetdam: Van Meurs and Van Someren, 1675.

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the vagaries of Dutch maritime ventures thus originated in Van Someren's publication of Van der Heyden's tale, the mixture of adventures with the ‘kort verhaal van de wetten en zeden’ of the various ‘nations’ (of which there is still little in Van der Heyden's book), may have been patterned after a text written by the Haarlem-born ship's surgeon Willem Schouten.¹² Schouten had written a manuscript based on the notes he took in Africa and Asia when he served the voc in the 1650s and 1660s that the publishers acquired by 1675. The surgeon had likely found inspiration for his book in the elaborate treatise about Hindu religion and southern India by Philippus Baldaeus (1632-1672), a Dutch Reformed minister whom Schouten had met in India, which had been published by Van Someren with two different partners in 1672.¹³

12 The interweaving of ‘scientific’ entries with the narrative of a travelogue can already be found in the form of Bernardus Paludanus's entries in Linschoten's Itinerario, see J.H. van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert, van Ian Huygen van Linschoten (...). Amsterdam: Cornelis Claesz, 1596.

13 See M. Barend-van Haaften, ‘Inleiding’, in: M Breet, De Oost-Indische Voyagie van Wouter Schouten. Zutphen 2003, 12-20: 16. P. Baldaeus, Naauwkeunge beschryvinge van Malabar en Choromandel, der zelver aangrenzende ryken, en het machtige eyland Ceylon (...). Amsterdam: Van Waasberge, Van Someren and Bakkamude, 1672.

Witsen and Dapper

The example of Van Someren's initiative in publishing Van der Heyden and the template of Schouten's detailed work (it likely reached the publishing companions in rather advanced form¹⁴) both gave an impetus to the plan to make a book out of Struys's yarns. This project's execution was further aided by the sponsorship of Nicolaas Witsen (1641-1717), the famous Amsterdam city councillor. Whereas Witsen was immersed in organizing the war against France in the mid-1670s, he maintained a strong interest in unexplored areas of the world, especially those ruled by the Muscovite tsar.¹⁵ Already on his own visit to Russia in 1664-1665 he had begun to take notes for a book on her outlying eastern regions, for which he sought out an interview with the Dutch-Muscovite business tycoon Jan van Sweeden, the very same man who in 1668 brought Jan Struys to Russia to build a ship for the tsar.¹⁶ It is possible that via Van Sweeden's in-laws, the Ruts family (like Witsen's own family long-standing traders on Arkhangel'sk), or via his acquaintances in the voc (in the 1690s Witsen would join the Heeren XVII), Witsen found out about Struys's remarkable stories, which intrigued the Amsterdam regent.¹⁷ Witsen was acquainted with Van Meurs, for his father Cornelis had been the subject of a book dedication in Olfert Dapper's first major work, which had been published by Van Meurs

14 Sections of Schouten's book were possibly edited by the same person who was the ghostwriter of Drie aanmerkelijke Reysen, for some parts (for example on Iran) seem hardly the result of Schouten's personal observations (see Breet, Oost-Indische Voyagie, 227-232).

15 Eventually, his notes would become Noord en Oost Tartarye, ofte bondig ontwerp van enige dier landen en volken, welke voormaels bekent zijn geweest (...). Amsterdam: [no name], 1692 (second edition: Amsterdam: Halma, 1705).

16 See N.C. Witsen, Moscovische reyse 1664-5 Journaal en aentekeningen. Eds Th. Locher, P. de Buck. 3 vols. Den Haag 1966-67, 373-388. For more on Van Sweeden, see my forthcoming book with Palgrave MacMillan.

17 See J.W. Veluwenkamp, Archangel. Nederlandse ondernemers in Rusland, 1550-1785 Amsterdam 2000, 99-102.

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(for whom it also was his first success).¹⁸ Witsen thus may have introduced Van Meurs and Van Someren to Struys's stories (and he may helped their publication along by a financial subvention), for which he was thanked in the book's dedication.¹⁹ Van Meurs and Van Someren then decided to use Witsen's protégé Dapper as the writer to transform Struys's tales into a book.²⁰ Alternatively, since ‘[n]ot long after Dapper's death it was alleged that he had drawn his material from the “diaries of those who have been in foreign places, especially of seamen”’, it is possible that Dapper himself brought Struys's stories to the publishers' attention and suggested his own candidacy as ghostwriter, concomitantly winning Witsen's backing for the project.²¹

The appeal of Struys's stories must have impressed Van Meurs and Van Someren, Dapper and Witsen alike. Fuller of harrowing incidents than Van der Heyden's account, their protagonist sustained a series of sufferings which reminded of Homer's Odyssey, wildly popular among Dutch readers. Educated at their gymnasia, athenea and universities, the burghers who could afford the money and the time to read a book such as Struys's had been taught the canon of the classical Greek and Roman texts. This widespread knowledge of the Iliad and Odyssey and of Herodotus's Histories undoubtedly made Van Meurs and Van Someren even keener to present Struys's stories to a Dutch reading audience. It was thus a felicitous coincidence that Dapper's second work, dedicated to Nicolaas Witsen, had been the first integral Dutch translation of Herodotus's Histories, which included the Greek historian's biography of Homer.²² Meanwhile, since Dapper himself hailed from a very modest background (his father was a ropemaker) and seems to have frequently relied on oral testimony of sailors for his other work, he was able to simulate the voice of a man of the people in a sufficiently believable manner and mediate it for an audience more refined than the usual listeners to sailors' lore.²³ Given the rich array of raw materials provided by Struys's reminiscing and the presence of such an eminently well-suited writer in their surroundings, Van Meurs and Van

18 Dapper dedicated to Cornelis Witsen his Historische beschryving, der stadt Amsterdam. Amsterdam: J. van Meurs, 1663.

19 ‘Opdracht’, in: Reysen.

20 His translation of Herodotus was dedicated to Nicolaas Witsen (Herodoot van Halikarnassus negen boeken der historien, gezegt de Musen.: Beneffens een beschrijving van Homeers leven, door den zelven Herodoot, Uit het Grieks vertaelt door Dr. O.D., Amsterdam, 1665). See E. Haitsma Mulier, ‘De eerste Hollandse stadsbeschrijvingen uit de zeventiende eeuw’, in: De zeventiende eeuw 2 (1993), 97-116: 103; Jones, ‘Olfert Dapper’, 73-74. In general for Witsen's patronage, see M. Peters, ‘Nepotisme, patronage en boekopdrachten bij Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717), burgemeester van Amsterdam’, in. Lias 1 (1998), 83-134.

21 A. Jones, ‘Decompiling Dapper: A Preliminary Search for Evidence’, in: History in Africa 17 (1990), 171-209: 193n38. See also Dozy, ‘Olfert’, 415.

22 Herodoot van Halikarnassus negen boeken der historien, gezegt de Musen (...). Beneffens een beshrijving van Homeers leven, door den zelven Herodoot. Uit het Grieks vertaelt door Dr. O D. Amsterdam: Hieronymus Sweerts, 1665. It had also been dedicated to Nicolaas Witsen (see Dozy, ‘Olfert’, 423). Dapper, a native of Amsterdam, had studied medicine in Utrecht and read a number of classical and modern languages (see C.M. Dozy, ‘Olfert Dapper’, in: Tijdschrift voor het Aardrijkskundig Genootschap 3 [1887], 414-35: 420). Despite his title, he does not seem to have practiced as a doctor.

23 See Dozy, ‘Olfert’, 415, 419-420. See on the vanes argots P. Burke, Toward a Social History of Early Modern Dutch. Amsterdam 2005, 26-27. ‘[Dutch patricians] expressed a heightened sensitivity towards violence and verbal fieriness’ (P.C. Spierenburg, Judicial Violence in the Dutch Republic. Corporal Punishment, Executions and Torture in Amsterdam, 1650-1750 Amsterdam 1978, 18).

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Someren decided to have Dapper compose a book consisting of the sailor's adventures interspersed with chorographic sections not yet supplied in their earlier works.

The writer's anonymity

But if Olfert Dapper is the obvious candidate for the actual authorship of Drie aanmerkelijke Reysen, it begs the question why such a well-reputed author would lend his hand to such an unedifying venture as the anonymous drafting of a text that was to be published under the name of a humble sailmaker. Between 1672 and 1677 nothing new was published under Dapper's name, after publishing weighty tomes at a breathtaking speed in 1663, 1665, 1668, 1670, and 1672, which had gained him a fair amount of fame.²⁴ Even today Dapper's Africa is consulted by scholars as a useful source.²⁵ Dapper's disappearance from the public eye is thus puzzling, but its clue is likely found in the political context of the Republic's Rampjaar.

In 1672 Dapper dedicated his description of Asia to the regent Cornelis de Witt, just before an Orangist mob at The Hague lynched de Witt and his brother Johan.²⁶ This reckoning had been accompanied by a universal purge of de Witt followers from city councils across Holland.²⁷ Dapper had flown de Witt's colours in his book, and was forced to lie low. Only in 1676 the clouds had lifted enough for Dapper to have his name reappear on a new Dutch-language publication as the author of the (unchanged) second edition of his work on Africa. And only in 1677 Van Meurs published a new original work under Dapper's name, a chorography on the Near East.²⁸

24 A virtually unchanged edition of his Africa saw the light in 1676. Lach and Van Kley call Dapper ‘indefatigable’, writing ‘long, encyclopedic and discursive’ works (see D.F Lach and E van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe. Vol 3. Chicago 1993, 493). Montanus, the other author who published such works with Van Meurs, was not under suspicion of political opposition and continued to publish under his own name, and with others publishers as well (see A. Montanus, Kerkelyke historie van Nederland. Amsterdam: Cornelis and Jan van Zwol, 1675). He had been an Orangist in the 1660s, see A. Montanus, 't Leven en bedryf der prinsen van Oranje. Amsterdam. Arent van den Heuvel and Samuel Imbrecht, 1664. On him see Reinier H. Hesselink, ‘Memorable Embassies. the secret history of Arnoldus Montanus' Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen’, in: Quaerendo, 1-2 (2002), 99-123.

25 Thus see Jones, ‘Olfert Dapper.’

26 Dapper, Asia, 3-3verso; in a somewhat analogous case, Nicolaas Witsen (who survived the Orangist purges 1672, see below) excised references to Cornelis de Witt in the 1690 edition of his Scheepsbouw, from which he also stripped the anglophobic parts (see W. Nijhoff, ‘De anglophobie van Nic. Witsen en verschillende redactien van zijn Scheepsbouw, 1671’ in: Het boek 14 [1925], 88-96 88-91; N. Witsen, Aeloude en Hedendaegsche Scheeps-Bouw en Bestier: waer in wijtloopigh wert verhandelt, de wijze van scheeps-timmeren (...). Amsterdam. C. Commelijn, and Broer en Jan Appelaer, 1671, N Witsen, Architectura navalis et Regimen Nauticum Ofte Aaloude en Hedendaagsche Scheeps-Bouw en Bestier (...). Amsterdam: Pieter and Joan Blaeu, 1690). Dapper's description of China and the Dutch Embassy sent to the Qing emperor in the 1660s had been dedicated to Johan de Witt in 1670 (‘Opdracht’, in. Dapper, Gedenkwaerdig Bedryf). For the murder of the brothers and the possible role of William iii in this, see R. Prud'homme van Reine, Schittering en schandaal; Biografie van Maerten en Cornelis Tromp. Amsterdam 2001, 301-308.

27 D.J. Roorda, Partij en factie Groningen 1978.

28 Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten, second ed.; O. Dapper, Naukeurige beschryving van gantsch Syrie en Palestyn of Heilige Lant (...). Amsterdam: Van Meurs, 1677. That the book on Africa was reprinted virtually unchanged in 1676 again lends further credence to the idea that Dapper had time and opportunity to dedicate to other projects.

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Helped along by the abatement of the political hysteria that had engulfed the embattled Republic in 1672, Dapper's rehabilitation in the mid-1670s was further facilitated by the good offices of Nicolaas Witsen, one of the patrons to whom Reysen was dedicated. Different from his father, Witsen jr. had never been in Johan de Witt's camp, and was actually elevated to Amsterdam's city council to replace the victims of the antide Witt purge.²⁹ Witsen subsequently developed a good relationship with Stadtholder William iii, proving his loyalty and value to the prince by his exertions to defend the country after 1672.³⁰ Trusted by the stadtholder and his adherents, Witsen's could eventually sponsor the reappearance of Dapper's name in public. In the meantime, Dapper worked on the Struys project: The book's praise of the ‘undeserved support, and... friendship’ by Nicolaas Witsen in the dedication of Reysen may express both Dapper's and Struys's gratitude.³¹

29 Cornelis Witsen was on good terms with de Witt faction's in-laws the Bickers and de Graeffs, who dominated Amsterdam's municipal politics (see H. Brugmans, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Second ed. Vol 3 Utrecht 1972-1973, 158-163, 166-167).

30 According to Roorda, Witsen was a ‘creatuur’ of the most prominent Amsterdam regent who in 1672 chose the side of Orange, Gillis Valckenier (see Roorda, Partij, 181, 250).

31 On the politics of book dedications, especially involving Witsen, see Peters, ‘Nepotisme’, 83, 103, 105. See ‘Opdracht’, in: Reysen.

Dapper's fingerprints

Besides having time available, a history of publishing with Van Meurs, skill at composing chorographies, a keen patron in Witsen, and motivation (the monetary reward he was tor receive for his work), Dapper's authorship of Reysen may further be detected in a variety of peculiarities of its text. For example, Olfert Dapper's intimate familiarity with the classical tradition is betrayed when Reysen has Struys identify Troy or places associated with Alexander the Great, references an illiterate sailmaker would hardly make.³² Furthermore, in both Dapper's own books and in Reysen, the ethnographic-geographical exposés closely follow the classical model pioneered by Herodotus.

Behaving like a modern researcher, Dapper had taken notes in private libraries and used unpublished manuscripts in preparing his books.³³ Similarly, the writer of Reysen used as his sources printed and hand-written ‘academic’ cosmographies in Dutch and other languages. Especially the work by the Holsteiner savant Adam Öhlschlager (1603-1671), or Olearius, formed a key source in enriching Struys's voyages.³⁴ After their first

32 Reysen, 83, 111-112, 349-350.

33 Jones, ‘Decompiling’, 172 Witsen's private library contained more than 2,000 volumes at the time of his death in 1717; although it will have been smaller in 1675, it may have been one of the collections mined by Dapper (see M. Peters, ‘From the Study of Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717). His Life with Books and Manuscripts’, in: Lias 1 [1994], 1-45: Table 3, 13). René Barendse expresses puzzlement with Dapper's ‘excellent description of Gombroon’ in Dapper's Asia, and calls Asia ‘a strange book-for it is unclear how Dapper obtained his information-yet it is a veritable storehouse of rare data’ (R. Barendse, The Arabian Seas 1640-1700 Armonk 2002, 80n150) This may hint at Dapper's access to voc sources (see below).

34 See the three editions published in 1651: A. Olearius, Beschrijvingh vande nieuwe Parciaensche, ofte orientaelsche reyse, welck door gelegentheyt van een Holsteynsche ambassade, aen den koningh in Persien geschiet is (...). Amsterdam: Benjamyn and Roest, 1651; AOlearius, Beschrivingh van de nieuwe Parciaensche ofte Orientaelsche reyse, welck door gelegentheyt van een Holsteynsche ambassade, aen den koningh in Persien gheschiet is (.). Utrecht. L. Roeck, 1651, A Olearius, Persiaensche Reyse uyt Holsteyn, door Lijflandt, Moscovien, Tartarien in Persien (...). Tweede druck, Amsterdam: Jan Jansz., 1651. For Olearius's influence, see P N. Rietbergen, Europe A Cultural History. Second ed London 2006, 412-413

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publication in 1647, Olearius's publications on Muscovy, the Caucasus and Persia served as a standard of scientific reliability for half a century in the United Provinces and much of Europe.³⁵ Three Dutch editions of Olearius thus saw the light in 1651, even if the polyglot Dapper will not have needed them.³⁶ Dapper had already happily and openly mined Olearius's work for his own Asia, and now revisited the Beschreibung for Reysen.³⁷

Reysen often summarizes Olearius's more detailed discussion of Muscovite, Caucasian, or Iranian customs.³⁸ But Dapper was an artful copyist, who compiled his text from more than just one source.³⁹ This is evident when Reysen embellishes the alleged barbarity of the Volga Cheremiss further than Olearius's Travels: Whereas the Holsteiner tells of Cheremiss polygamy, Reysen compares the alleged habit of Cheremiss fathers to marry their own daughters to similar customs among the Singhalese of Ceylon: Singhalese men are said to deflower their daughters on the eve of the girls' weddings.⁴⁰ Nowhere in Reysen is any lengthy Struys visit to Ceylon rendered, although it was an important voc outpost at the time and he did at least once halt there briefly.⁴¹ The form and content of the passage make it evident that the tale found its origins in the German travel account of the Swiss voc servant Albrecht Herport (1641-1730), published in German in 1669, and in Dutch in 1671.⁴² Struys's bizarre metaphor about Singhalese fathers is a literal translation from Herport's description of them in German: ‘[The father] sagt, daß es ihme gebühre von dem Baum, den er gepflantzet, die erste Frucht zugeniessen’, which in Dutch became (see fig. 4). ‘[s]ou ik een Boomken planten, en daar af geen vrucht leesen voor ik die aan een ander overgeef, dat waar een groote slechtigheyt’ (‘if I would plant a little tree and would not take a fruit before I would give it to someone else, that were a great evil’].⁴³

35 A. Olearius, Offt begehrte beschreibung der neuen orientalischen Reise (...). Schleswig: Jacob Zur Glocken, 1647; A. Olearius, Vermehrte Neue Beschreibung der Moskowitischen und Persischen reise (...). Schleswig: J. Holwein, 1656; A. Olearius, The voyages & travels of the ambassadors sent by Frederick duke of Holstein, to the great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia. Trans. John Davies London: Thomas Dring and John Starkey, 1662; The Voyages and Travells of the Ambassadors (...). Second ed. Trans. John Davies. London: Starkey and Basset, 1669. Olearius, too, was mined by Balthasar Coyett (see A.M. Loviagin, ‘Vvedenie’, in: Posol'stvo Kunraada fan' Klenka k' tsariam' Alekseiu Mikhailovichu i Fedoru Alekseevichu. Trans. and ed. A.M. Loviagin. St. Petersburg, 1900, cxx-cxxiii).

36 See note 31.

37 Dapper's Asia discusses the graves of the Persian shahs (Dapper, Asia, 46-47) and some of the towns (for instance Ardabil, see Dapper, Asia, 44-45).

38 Compare for example Olearius, Travels, 165-168, with Reysen, 153-156, or Reysen, 150, with Olearius, Travels, 144-145.

39 Jones, ‘Decompiling’, 171.

40 Olearius, The Travels, 300; Reysen, 176; Mund has observed an inclination among all Western authors to essentialize the Volga peoples as the most abject barbarians (Mund, Orbis Russiarum, 299).

41 Reysen, 369.

42 A. Herport, Reise nach Java, Formosa, Vorder-Indien und Ceylon, 1659-1668. Ed. S.P. L'Honoré Naber. Den Haag 1930 (originally published in 1669), 133; Reysen, 176.

43 Herport, Reise, 133; Reysen, 176. Schouten depicts the people of Ceylon committing ‘bloedschande’ (incest) without specifying it further (Breet, Oost-Indische Voyagie, 293).

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Figure 4. Page 176 of Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 893 E 2

Dapper's modus operandi also surfaces in Reysen's description of Thailand. This part bears a close resemblance to a then unpublished manuscript, written in the 1620s by the voc officer Cornelis van Nijenrode (Nieuwenroode).⁴⁴ Witsen's intimate connection with

44 This resemblance was noticed first by G. Vinal Smith, who did not explain how the writer of Reysen could have found such a source (see G.V. Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Thailand. DeKalb 1977, 124-125, 128-129). Compare C. van N(e)ijenrode, ‘Vertoogh van de Gelegentheijd des Koninrijk van Siam’, in Kroniek van het Historisch Genootschap te Utrecht 27 (1872), 279-318: 280-302, and Reysen, 27-44: It shows clearly how Struys's editor used much of Van Nijenrode's 1622 account to present a description of Siam. Van Nijenrode's work was published for the first time in the nineteenth century (C. van Nijenrode, ‘Remonstrantie ende verthooninghe der gelegenheijt des conickrijck van Siam’, in: Kronijk van het Historisch Genootschap gevestigd te Utrecht 10 (1854), 176-191; Van N(e)ijenrode, ‘Vertoogh’). The passage on Siam in Reysen does not resemble that of other potential sources such as the works by Jeremias van Vliet or Joost Schouten (Jeremias van Vliet, Historiael Verhael der Sieckte (...). Tokyo 1956; I van Vliet, Naukeurige Beschryvinge van het Koningryck Siam. Leiden: F. Harinck, 1692; F Caron, J Schouten, A True Description of the Kingdoms of Japan and Siam Ed. C R Boxer, New York 1971 [originally published in 1663]). Van der Kraan suggests that the chiefs of the voc in East Asia had Van Nijenrode's Remonstrantie (written in 1622), Joost Schouten's Notitie (1636), and Jeremias van Vliet's Historiael Verhael (1636) available in manuscript; a version of Schouten's work was published in 1663 (A. van der Kraan, ‘On Company Business: The Rijckloff van Goens Mission to Siam, 1650’, in. Itinerario 2 (1998), 42-84: 48-50).

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the voc probably explains how Dapper read this fifty-year old hand-written report.⁴⁵ Establishing within the description of Siam the sporadic genuine memories of Struys is even more complicated than elsewhere in Reysen as the entire section seems to err in dating what he had witnessed twenty-five years earlier. This imprecision may have not merely resulted from a faulty memory, but also from a deliberate attempt at obfuscation in order to keep some of the voc's operations secret: Throughout the book, the voc is portrayed as a well-run organization without blemish, and it does not mention a variety of scandals involving the highest voc officials that unfolded during Struys's sojourn in South-East Asia around 1650.⁴⁶ It may be surmised that the author worked under strict orders not to befoul the Company's reputation or compromise its interests.

45 Witsen joined the voc Heeren XVII in the 1690S and remained a voc Board member until his death in 1717, see for example Pieter van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie. Ed. F.W. Stapel. 7 vols. Den Haag 1927-1954, vol. 1, part 1, 112, Francois Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indie, vervattende een naauwkeurige en uitvoerige verhandelinge van Nederlands mogentheyt in die gewesten (...). Dordrecht and Amsterdam. J. van der Braam and G. Onder de Linden, 1724-6, vol. 1, 304.

46 See John E. Wills, Jr, Review of Colbert, Mercantilism, and the French Quest for Asian Trade by Glenn Ames, in: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March (1998), 206-207. Neither edition of Witsen's Noord en Oost Tartarye ever was available for public sale (the wealthy Witsen seems to have entirely financed the printing of both highly limited editions), probably on Peter the Great's request or because of the natural discretion of Witsen who was unwilling to jeopardize his good relations with the tsar (Peters, ‘Nepotisme’, 99; N. Witsen, Noord en Oost Tartarye, ofte bondig ontwerp van enige dier landen en volken (.). Amsterdam. Halma, 1705 [1692]). See also M.E. van Opstall, ‘From Alkmaar to Ayudhya and Back’, in: All of One Company: The VOC in Biographical Perspective. Utrecht 1986, 108-120: 109

A hasty job

It perhaps surprises that such a skilled writer as Dapper produced a book that has such a rough form. There are several reasons for this uneven quality. Reysen was the writer's first attempt at composing works in this mixed genre, and the circumstances in which it was finished suggest great haste at preparing it for print.⁴⁷ While the book had been planned since before Jan Struys's departure for Muscovy with the Van Klenk Embassy in Jury 1675, the manuscript based on Struys's adventures remained unfinished until his return, for otherwise the publishers would not have waited until the last months of 1676 to ready the text for publication.⁴⁸ Reysen was clearly only finalized after Struys's homecoming in October 1676, for it contains entries referring to events earlier that year.⁴⁹ Before Struys's return from Moscow, his ghostwriter primarily busied himself with compiling Reysen's chorographic descriptions.

47 Hair's remarks seem apposite here: ‘All this suggests that Dapper's editing was, by modern standards, sometimes casual and slapdash, that is, it was much as one would expect from an editor of that age producing books of this kind’ (see P.E.H. Hair, ‘Barbot, Dapper, Davity. A Critique of Sources on Sierra Leone and Cape Mount’, in. History in Africa 1 (1974), 25-54: 35-36)

48 Nationaal Archief (Den Haag), Archieven der Staten-Generaal 8586 (Verbael), Historisch Verhael.

49 Reference, in a sort of personal style hinting at Struys's direct involvement in composing the passage, is made to the death of tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, who died in February 1676 (Reysen, 166) More ambiguous is the earlier reference to the death of Kurt Sivertsen Adeler, the Danish-Norwegian admiral, in 1675 (Reysen, 75).

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Struys brought unwelcome news to the publishers upon his arrival in Amsterdam: Balthasar Coyett was preparing an account of Van Klenk's embassy for the rivalling publishing house of Jan ten Hoorn († 1715).⁵⁰ It was to include descriptions of the Muscovites' history, customs, and the country's geography, in other words, most of the topics on that part of the world covered in Reysen.⁵¹ In the last months of 1676 the final draughting of the text was thus completed at forced pace (Struys may have played a role by having the book read to him for his approval). Traces of the great speed applied to preempt the appearance of ten Hoorn's rival publication may be discerned in the discrepancy between the engraved frontpage, which list as year of publication 1677, and the title page, which has 1676.⁵² Likewise, haste caused the front-matter of the book and the two letters preceding Struys's tales to be printed in Roman script, while the actual journeys appeared in Gothic script.⁵³ A mish-mash of engravings was gathered and included in Reysen. The dedication's text apparently was left unchanged from the version typeset before Struys's return from Muscovy: Rather than thanking Van Klenk for his mediation in the matter of the payment of Struys's wages owed by the tsar's government (for by the time the book appeared Van Klenk's retinue had been back in Holland for months), it solicits the ambassador's representation of Struys's grievance in front of the tsar as a future favour.⁵⁴ Dapper, then, had been asked in October 1676 to complete his text as soon as possible.

50 Coyett's book, judging from the preface by its publisher Jan Claesz. ren Hoorn, appeared lare in 1677 (it is dated 20 November 1677, see Historisch Verhael). Ten Hoorn was to become a major publisher in Amsterdam (see R. Dekker, Humour in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age. Houndsmills 2001, 52). Dutch curiosity regarding matters Muscovite appears evident (and thus the possible demand for a book about Russia) from a pamphlet published in early 1676 (Relaes van't gepasseerde voor ende op de Inkomste ende Receptie van den Heere van Klenck Haer Hoogh. Mog Extraordinaris Ambassadeur binnen der Moscou, geschiet den 11/21 January 1676. 's Gravenhage: Jacobus Scheltens, 1676 [kb: Knuttel 7442]).

51 It was published anonymously in 1677, see Historisch Verhael

52 Engraved frontispiece in. Reysen, 1

53 ‘Extract’; David Butler, ‘Extract’ The variation in script is indicative of the transition from Gothic print to Latin print, although Gothic lingered for a while as it was the type taught to children at primary school well into the eighteenth century (Dekker, Humour, 34; see also L Febvre and H.J Martin, The Coming of the Book. London 1976, 83)

54 ‘Opdracht’, in: Reysen.

The modern overtones of seventeenth-century Dutch publishing

The production of Reysen attests to the use of ghostwriters within the context of the supremely capitalist publishing world of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic that is much more common in our own celebrity-obsessed culture.⁵⁵ Then as now the motives for such subterfuge are obvious: Struys's stories were exciting enough to titillate Dutch (and possibly foreign) readers, but the publishers faced the problem that the sailor could not produce them in written form. As he nicely fitted the type of the archetypical Dutch seafaring hero, the publishers maintained the fiction that Struys wrote

55 For its capitalist quality, see Febvre, Martin, Coming, 67, 129-131; E. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change Cambridge 2005, 22, 32-35, 44.

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the text.⁵⁶ He was a much more appealing figure to advertise as the book's author than Dr. Dapper, who bore the stigma of a political outcast. For the partnership of Jacob van Meurs and Johannes van Someren, certainly, the strategy paid off, for the book sold well at home and abroad.⁵⁷ Even if he never received public recognition for his labour on Reysen, the writing of the book provided Dapper with the wherewithal to tide him over until his name could safely reappear publicly. Jan Struys, too, must have received a reward for allowing his stories to be published in the book, although his payment was likely a modest one-time lump sum (even if it still may have seemed significant to him!).⁵⁸ Struys and Dapper's fame proved enduring. Dapper's ‘own’ work is still used as a source for the historical study of some regions. And Jan Struys became immortal as the writer of a book he never wrote.⁵⁹

56 For the Dutch fondness for ‘intrepid nautical heroes’, see S Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. Berkeley 1988, 28-34.

57 See note 1. The book was still valued a century later, when in 1788, in the edition published by Steven van Esveldt of the 1740s, its price was listed as four guilders the same price that was charged for a 1691 print of Olearius's work in Dutch, Voltaire's Candide (the Geneva 1759 edition) was priced at a mere one guilder (see J. van Abkoude, R. Arrenberg, Naamregister van de bekendste en meest in gebruik zijnde Nederduitsche boeken Rotterdam: Arrenberg, 1788, 385, 496, 552; Voltaire, Candide, ou L'optimisme. Genève. Cramer, 1759; J.J. Struys, Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige Reysen (..). Amsterdam: Steeve van Esveldt, 1746).

58 Rewards, even for actual authors, remained meagre (see Febvre, Martin, The Coming, 162-163).

59 Recently, Reysen was republished in Russian in Moscow (see G K Kotoshikhin, P. Gordon, J. Streis, Tsar' Aleksei Mikhailovich, Moskovua 1 Evropa Moskva, 2000).

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Appendix: The Various Versions of Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige Reysen⁶⁰

Under the auspices of Van Meurs (or his widow Annetje Goelet) and Van Someren, the Dutch original (printed in quarto) was translated soon after its publication in German (by Andreas Müller) and in French (by Glanius).⁶¹ But around the same time the work was also already pirated in both languages, even though the publishers received copyright protection in the German Empire as well.⁶² By 1683 the first English version appeared of John Struys's Most Perillous Voyages.⁶³ Its translator was John Morrison. The book was probably issued with the permission of the heirs of Van Meurs and Van Someren, since the English publishers (first Smith and then Swalle) seem to have used the engraved plates, clumsily anglicizing their text. As Willem Floor has suggested, the quality of these translations leaves something to be desired, with especially the French version taking considerable licence.⁶⁴ By 1685, it seems, the rights to the work in Holland had been transferred to a group of publishers; from that year onward, virtually all versions of the book that were printed were either a reprint of Glanius's French version or of the Dutch original (occasionally parts were left out).⁶⁵

On behalf of Tsar Peter the Great, a hand-written Russian translation of parts of the Dutch original was produced, allegedly by a Swedish prisoner-of-war, Venedikt

60 See as well M. Poe, Foreign Descriptions of Muscoyy. An Analytic Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources Columbus, 1995, 173-174; F Adelung, Kritisch-literansche Ubersicht der Reisenden in Rußland bis 1700, deren Berichte bekannt sind. Vol. 2. St. Petersburg, 1846, 345-346, A. Morozov, ‘Parusnyi Master Ian Streis 1 ego Piuteshestvie,’ in. A Morozov (ed.), Tri puteshestvua Ia.Ia Streis. Moskva, 1935, 23-38: 24-28.

61 J.J. Struys, Les voyages en Moscovie, Tartane, en Perse, aux Indes, et en plusieurs autres pais étrangers (..). Trans. M. Glanius. Amsterdam: Veuve J. van Meurs, 1681 (quarto); Jan Strausz, Sehr schwere, wiederwertige und denckwurdige Reysen, durch Italien, Griechenland, Lifland, Moscau, Tartarey (..) Trans A(ndreas) M(uller) Amsterdam: J von Meurs und J von Sommern, 1678 (folio).

62 See J.J. Struys, Ungluckliche Schiffs-Leute, oder mirkwirdige Reise zwenzing Hollanderen, welche auss Befehl des christlichen Reussichen Keisers, in der Moscau, ein grosses Schiff gebauet, die Kaspische See damit zubefaaren (..). Ed. Jakob Redinger. Zurich. Heinrich Muller, 1679 (octavo). Only two further German editions were subsequently printed: Leipzig K.F. Kohler, 1797 (translated from a French version) and Gotha and Erfurt: Heunigsche Buchhandlung, 1832. French reprints (always translated by Glanius and titled as J.J. Struys, Les voyages en Moscovie, Tartane, en Perse, aux Indes, et en plusieurs autres pais étrangers (...)) appeared apparently in Lyon (twice in 1682, with Amaulry, and with Rey and Plaignard, and in 1684 with L. Plaignard) and perhaps in Madrid (in 1682 and 1684, no publisher indicated). The Glanius translation remained the version copied in French (it was reprinted in 1718, 1720, 1724, 1730, and 1762 in Amsterdam, in 1724 in Rouen, and in 1827 and 1838 in Paris; publishers of most of these versions preferred to remain anonymous).

63 John Struys, The Perillous and most Unhappy Voyages, through Italy, Greece, Lifeland, Moscovia, Tartary (...). Trans. John Morrison. London: Samuel Smith, 1683 (quarto); this edition may have been reprinted by Smith in 1684. The Votages and Travels of John Struys (...). Trans. John Morrison. London: Abel Swalle, 1684 (quarto)

64 See W. Floot, ‘Fact or Fiction. The Most Perilous Journeys of Jan Jansz Struys’, in: Jean Calmard (ed.), Études Safavides. Paris 1993, 57-68: 66-68.

65 For the French versions, see in the previous notes. The 1686 edition was published as J.J Struys, Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige Reysen (...). Amsterdam: Van der Deyster and Van der Jouwer, 1686 After this editions were published in 1705 (Amsterdam: wed. Gysbert de Groot), 1713 (Amsterdam: np), 1730 (Dordrecht: Hendrik Walpot), 1741-1742 (Haarlem: Johannes Marshoorn), 1746 (Amsterdam Steven van Esveldt), and 1760 (Amsterdam. Abraham Cornelisz, an abbreviated version)

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S(c)hilling, around 1701. The tsar was apparently dissatisfied with it (or perhaps he wanted a more complete version when he realized that it had information about Dagestan and northern Iran, which he was to invade in 1722): For, in 1718 or so, another translation into Russian was undertaken, based on a French version (the edition supposedly printed in Lyon in the 1684).⁶⁶ But nothing seems to have been printed in Russian until the excerpts prepared by Nikolai Novikov in the 1770s and 1780s (it should be remembered, of course, that the Russian elite often read German or French in the eighteenth century).⁶⁷ Only in the nineteenth century a more complete version of the Moscovite part of Reysen's third section was presented to a Russian audience, although again based on a French version, not on the Dutch original of Reysen.⁶⁸ In Soviet times, finally, a full translation of the Dutch original was issued.⁶⁹ The Russian interest in the book can also be measured by the twenty-two or twenty-three different editions of the book preserved in St. Petersburg's Russian National Library today.⁷⁰ In recent times, the work has been twice republished.⁷¹

In Dutch, Reysen was reworked twice into an adventure story for young adolescents during the twentieth century, but on each occasion the story did not appeal to a large readership (Saerdam's project to present a trilogy based upon Reysen, in fact, never was completed).⁷²

66 P.O. lurchenko, ‘O puteshchestvua po Rossii Golandtsa Striusa’, in: Russku arkhiv' (St Petersburg) 2 (1879), 265-269: 265-267, 267n15; A Kornilovich', ‘Ian Iansen' Streis' (okonch.)’, in: Severnyi khiv7 (1824), 26-40: 40.

67 See N. Novikov (ed.), Drevnaia rossuskaia bibliofika 1, (January-June 1773), 18-23; N. Novikov (ed.), Drevnaia rossuskaia bibliofika 2, part 3 (1788), 463-471.

68 ‘Puteshestvye po Rossii gollandtsa Streisa’, in: Russku arkhiv 1 (1880), 17-108.

69 A. Morozov (ed.), Tri puteshestvua Ia.Ia. Streis. Moskva 1935. The translator was E. Borodina.

70 The catalogue of this library indicates two different editions of the 1676 original, which seem to be slightly different versions of the same version of the book.

71 G.K. Kotoshikhin, P Gordon, J. Streis, Tsar' Aleksei Mikhailovich, Moskovua 1 Evropa. Moskva 2000; J.J. Struys, D. Butler, Tri puteshestvua. Ed. A.I. Tsepkov. Riazan' 2006. Both are reptints of the 1935 Morozov edition.

72 W. van Saerdam, Jan Jansen Struys De omzwervingen van een Zaansch zeilmaker Eerste reis 1648-1651. Den Haag 1929; D.J. Douwes (red.). De schriklijke reis van Jan Jansz. Struys, 1668-1673. Zaandijk 1974.