A Pirate Of Exquisite Mind: The Life Of William Dampier

Author: Diana Preston, Michael Preston

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $22.99 AUD
  • : 9780552772105
  • : Random House UK
  • : CORGIE ADULT
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  • : 0.365
  • : March 2005
  • : 198mm X 128mm X 33mm
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  • : 22.99
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Diana Preston, Michael Preston
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  • : Paperback
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  • : English
  • : 910.92
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  • : Illustrations, maps, ports.
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Barcode 9780552772105
9780552772105

Description

"William Dampier, (1651 -1715), was an English adventurer and pirate who preyed on ships on the Spanish Main. Poor and ill-educated and determined to make his fortune, he nonetheless had a passion for exploration and scientific research. mong many extraordinary achievements Dampier mapped the winds and the currents of the world's oceans for the first time; he led the first recorded party of Englishmen to set foot on Australia - 80 years before Cook; he was an enthusiastic naturalist and following his visit to the Galapagos islands he wrote about their wildlife 150 years before Darwin, who drew on Dampier's notes in his own work; he was the first travel writer- A NEW VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD was embraced by the literary world and became an instant bestseller when it was published in 1697 - it was said to have influenced the novels of Swift and Defoe. TIDES OF FORTUNE looks at Dampier the man full of contradictions, and analyses why he who achieved so much 'blew it' later in life, declining into scandal, controversy, failure and ven farce. A unique man ahead of his time, he lived a large part of life among pirates yet managed to preserve what Coleridge called his 'exquisite refinem

Author description

Diana Preston is an Oxford-trained historian, writer, and broadcaster who lives in London. She is the author of The Road to Culloden Moor; A First Rate Tragedy: Robert Falcon Scott and the Race to the South Pole; The Boxer Rebellion and Wilful Murder: The Sinking of the Lusitania. Michael Preston, Diana Prestons husband, read English at Oxford University and is now an historian and traveller.