Customer Reviews

Memoirs of a Buccaneer: Dampier's New Voyage Round the World, 1697 (Dover Maritime)

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This isn't really a memoir. There is some narrative but it's quite a bit less than 50 percent.

This is a wonderful book, but a real chore to read because it's so dry, unemotional and impersonal. A great deal of the text is devoted to dry descriptions of the navagational problems, terrain characteristics, food productions and inhabitants of the various places visited. This matter is occasionally charming and gives brief glimpses of Dampier's character, but by and large it's deadly boring.

As for the narrative, the offhand criminality of the buccaneers if a lot of fun.

One of the more interesting aspects of this is the descriptions of the very frustrating difficulties they often have in achieving their navagational goals, what with all the contrary winds, currents and storms. Other books tend to gloss over this.

I was quite surprised that the general style of writing and the mentality behind it wasn't that different from many of the 19th century books I've been reading. Of course, it's quite stiff and formal compared to the breezy modern style of nowadays.

One minor detail: it says in the info above that this is 448 pages but the length of the main text is only 367.

As a descendant of William Dampier, I am collecting everything about his life and work. The more I read of this man, the more impressed I am with his achievements.