Houtman, Cornelis de

Eerste schip-vaert der Hollanders naar Oost-Indien

met vier schepen

Amsterdam, Joost Hartgens, 1650

Tiele 121

In small quarto, recent quarter calf binding

102 pp, including title page with woodcut illustration

6 text engravings in copper plate as follows:

A5r. Inhabitants cape of Good Hope

D4r.    Bantam

E1v.    Dance at Java

E2v.    Council at Ambon

E3r.    A nobleman from Bantam

G1r.    A woman follows her deceased man into the fire

G2r.    The island St Helena

The voyage by Cornelis de Houtman is the first by the Dutch to the Indies (1595-1597). It was also the first foreign intrusion into the dominance of Portugal in SE Asia. The voyage was harsh and difficult: only one ship of the four that sailed, returned safely home after two years, the original fleet having lost 80 percent of its crew.

Two different journals of this voyage were published by Langenes in Middelburg in 1597 and 1598, the first under the title Verhael van... and the second as the Journaal van.... The text of the Verhael is the text that was used by John Woolfe in London for his English edition of the journal in 1598 and by Hulsius to publish his German version in Frankfurt, also in 1598 and by Conrad Loew in Cologne in the same year.

The text of the first Amsterdam edition has a different source. It is mainly drawn from the original journal by Willem Lodewijkszoon (Tiele Memoire 111) and another journal of the same voyage by Frank van der Does. It covers the whole voyage. The many inserts (descriptions of cities, countries, notes etc) have various, later sources... The book was printed in Dutch, French and Latin in its first year of printing, 1598. It was re-edited for the Colijn edition in 1617 and again for the Commelin edition of 1646. Ours then, the Hartgens edition would be the fourth re-edition, though the plates, text engraving on copper plate, are completely new.

Second edition (first 1648) of Joost Hartgens pocket edition of the original oblong edition by Claeszoon.

Bibliography

Rouffaer, GP and IJzerman J.W: De eerste schipvaart van de Nederlanders naar Oost Indie, den Haag, Martinus Nijhoff. 1925