201 résultats
1675ABC_50456Amsterdam 1675. 4to 19.1 x 14.5 cm. Michiel de Groot Contemporary multicolour brocade paper wrapper covered with protective clear plastic. With a large woodcut illustration of a Dutch merchant ship on the title page 3 woodcut illustrations in the text including a repeat of the woodcut on the title page and a large decorated woodcut initial. 6 42 pp. Very rare 17th-century Dutch edition of the earliest published biography devoted entirely to a pirate and one of the most vivid narratives of maritime freebooting to emerge from the Dutch Golden Age.Claes Gerritszoon Compaen 1587-1660 began respectably as a merchant before turning privateer and ultimately pirate. Around 1620 he abandoned the constraints of licensed privateering despite holding a commission from the States-General and the Prince of Orange and embarked upon an independent career of sea-robbery. For three years he hijacked ships in the English Channel the Mediterranean the Caribbean and off the coasts of Africa America and the West-Indies acquiring a formidable reputation. Contemporary chroniclers record that Spaniards Portuguese French and English alike feared his attacks. Officially branded a Zee-Roover and Schelm he nevertheless achieved legendary status and remarkably was eventually pardoned and allowed to return to Oostzaan where he lived out his days as a local celebrity.First published in 1659 the present work proved an immediate success and ran through numerous editions into the early 19th century to 1803. All editions are now scarce the 17th-century editions 1659 1662 1675 1688 in particular. The text is set in gothic textura type characteristic of popular Dutch prose works of the period and most editions including the present are illustrated with woodcuts. With a black oval library stamp of Missie Huis Arnhem in the bottom outer corner of the front wrapper the number 9<<1621:1627>> in the top margin of the front wrapper and the title page an ownership stamp of de Mul on the inside of the front wrapper and on the title page and a small bookplate of Librairie ancienne et mod Nartinus! Nijhoff La Haye mounted on the inside of the front wrapper. The paper wrapper is worn the spine has previously been stengthened with black paper/tape the whole is now covered with protective clear tape. Slight foxing and browning throughout with a small tear in the outer margin of pp. 39-40 not affecting the text. The present work is complete but leavs in the final quire have been mis bound: p. 30 is followed by pp. 35-38 31-34 39-42.l Buisman 116; Lunsford Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands 2005 pp. 161-163; STCN 097051624 1 copy; USTC 1811907 1 copy; WorldCat 951918594 6 copies; cf. Cat. NHSM p. 897 1659 ed.; Muller America 2131; Muller 839-840 other eds.; Sabin 15015 1663 & 1685 eds.; Scheepers II 1026; Tiele Mémoire pp. 248-249; Waller 218 all ed. 1662. unknown