A New Voyage
Round the World
by William Dampier,
1697 Edition
⚓️ Intro of this site
This site includes all the pages of the book in images, and text extracted from these images by latest AI.
⚓️ Intro of W. Dampier, & why it's necessary
I shouldn't have to introduce W. Dampier, but since the whole world knows Robinson Crusoe but not Old Dampier, it's necessary to put in some context first.
This man is an adventurer, pirate, scientist, travel-cum-scientific writer, the 1st Englishman who circumnavigated the world 3 times.
Unlike Taylor Swift, He was there in the Golden Age of Sailing, fighting and barbecuing with legendary pirate captains in the Caribbeans. He was also there in the very beginning of Scientific Thinking and Writing. He captained the first sailing expedition purely for the purpose of science.
His book A New Voyage Round the World was a massive sensation that fundamentally shaped the genre of travel writing and inspired generations of explorers and scientists.
This man put piracy and science, the coolest things, in one book.
He more than directly inspired Daniel Defoe, Charles Darwin, Capt. Cook, Adm. Nelson, ..., his books were required reading in the Royal Navy for its maritime knowledge and accuracy.
It's safe to say the Golden Age of Inquiry (age of discovery, enlightenment, and scientific revolution) is also the Golden Age of Sailing - obviously adventure and commerce are the best teachers. England was a very open-minded country at that time, and Dampier was most celebrated as well. But since then, he basically disappeared in public education. We are still very open today, but the world is not free market any more.
⚓️ Great things about this book, & this particular edition
This year is 2026, meaning the book is published a bit over 300 years ago. Its language is surprisingly modern - actually termed pre-modern English - everybody can understand it with no big problem.
The amazing thing about the formatting in this edition is, every line is very short and every page is very digestible. 500 pages, 20 chapters, on average 25 short pages a chapter.
You will notice that, during that time English words, both sounds and spelling, were not formalized. At the peak of Age of Sailing, numerous places were discovered and named by different nations, and perhaps multiples times. And then later heard by people from different languages, who often have to translate the words in sounds to their own informal spelling.
What this means - the spelling consistency is nothing like today, and the same places might have all kinds of names - sometimes similar, sometimes not at all similar. But, what I came to appreciate, is that all these mistakes are very, very tolerable, and in a way makes it much more interesting. You can feel that, English, French, Spanish, ..., all these people from very different places, explore, fight, pirate, communicate, trade, ..., it's very dynamic and interesting.
But even if we do not live in that golden time and place, when and where we did not have the seemingly endless options for entertainment but not enough time, it actually could be a great thing having not many options, which gives us all the time and helps us focus on one great book or one thing, therefore naturally resulting in very high "tolerance for mistakes". In that sense, this edition is perfect to me with all its mistakes.