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The story is set in 1629, when the pride of the Dutch East India Company, the Batavia, is on its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to leave Holland. The magnificent ship is already boiling over with a mutinous plot that is just about to break into the open when, just off the coast of Western Australia, it strikes an unseen reef in the middle of the night. While Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert decides to take the long-boat across 2000 miles of open sea for help, his second-in-command Jeronimus Cornelisz takes over, quickly deciding that 250 people on a small island is unwieldy for the small number of supplies they have. Quietly, he puts forward a plan to 40 odd mutineers how they could save themselves, kill most of the rest and spare only a half-dozen or so women, including his personal fancy, Lucretia Jansz - one of the noted beauties of Holland - to service their sexual needs. A reign of terror begins, countered only by a previously anonymous soldier Wiebbe Hayes, who begins to gather to him those are prepared to do what it takes to survive... hoping against hope that the Commandeur will soon be coming back to them with the rescue yacht.' Source: Libraries Australia.
Notes
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Dedication: To Hugh Edwards, OAM, Max Connoer, OAM and Henrietta Drake-Brockman. Who did more than any in the modern era to bring this stunning story to light.
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Epigraph:Australian history is almost always picturesque, indeed it is also so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer and so it pushes the other novelties into second and third places. It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies; and all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises and adventures, the incongruities, and contradictions, and the incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened. Mark Twain, 1897.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille,large print and sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Mirror Rim
2015
single work
essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 47 2015; (p. 262-269) The Best Australian Essays 2015 2015;'I thought Batavia was the story I was carrying on my trip to the Abrolhos in the first weeks of spring. You know the one - the Dutch East India Company ship that ran aground there in 1629, delivering 316 people to a cluster of tiny islands in the northern part of the archipelago where some endured a murderously mutinous attack at the hands of their fellow travellers. Only 116 arrived safely in the Spice Islands, half a year later.' (Publication abstract)
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Beached on the Edge of the World
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 29 May 2011; (p. 7)
— Review of Batavia 2011 single work novel -
Murder and Mayhem
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: Illawarra Mercury Weekender , 26-27 March 2011; (p. 25)
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Beached on the Edge of the World
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 29 May 2011; (p. 7)
— Review of Batavia 2011 single work novel -
Murder and Mayhem
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: Illawarra Mercury Weekender , 26-27 March 2011; (p. 25) -
Mirror Rim
2015
single work
essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 47 2015; (p. 262-269) The Best Australian Essays 2015 2015;'I thought Batavia was the story I was carrying on my trip to the Abrolhos in the first weeks of spring. You know the one - the Dutch East India Company ship that ran aground there in 1629, delivering 316 people to a cluster of tiny islands in the northern part of the archipelago where some endured a murderously mutinous attack at the hands of their fellow travellers. Only 116 arrived safely in the Spice Islands, half a year later.' (Publication abstract)
- Western Australia,