Batavia (ship) - Publications and Other Media

Publications and Other Media

The following list is selective – the fascination with the wreck of Batavia has created an industry – with many other books and articles written, besides the items shown below.

• 1647 – Commander Pelsaert died the year after the event, leaving behind his journal of the events. This journal, together with the pamphlet Ongeluckige voyagie van 't schip Batavia (The Unlucky Voyage of the Vessel Batavia), published in 1647, made it possible to rediscover the wreck.
• 1897 – Willem Siebenhaar's The Abrolhos tragedy, a translation of Ongeluckige voyagie. Purchased and funded by the guano merchant Florance Broadhurst (see entry on Charles Edward Broadhurst and his family) the translation was subsequently published in the Western Mail. The events also formed the basis of a novel called Marooned on Australia (?1896), by the explorer Ernest Favenc. The events were to feature in Malcolm Uren's work Sailorman's ghosts (1940), and Douglas Stewart's radio play Shipwrecked, in 1947.
• 1963 – Renowned Australian author Henrietta Drake-Brockman's comprehensive, non-fiction account Voyage to Disaster took her ten years to write. She also wrote a fictional story based on the Batavia, The Wicked and the Fair in 1957. It was Drake-Brockman's own research aided by journalist Hugh Edwards (including calculating the differences between Dutch nautical miles from the early 17th century, and English nautical miles) that led divers to the location of the wreck.
• 1966 – Journalist Hugh Edwards published an account of the shipwreck and its rediscovery by Dave Johnson, Max and Graham Cramer, and Greg Allen, under the name Island of Angry Ghosts: Murder, Mayhem and Mutiny (1966).
• 1970s and 80s – The tale was retold by a number of writers, including Lee Knowles "Batavia incident" in Cool Summers, Hal Colebatch's "Batavia Suite", Mark O'Connor's poem sequence The Batavia and in Nicholas Hasluck's, The Bellarmine Jug.
• Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Western Australia Museum publishes reports on its excavation and research. These are based on Jeremy Green's archaeological report Green, J.N., (1989) The AVOC retourschip Batavia, wrecked Western Australia 1629. An excavation report and catalogue of artefacts. British Archaeological Reports International Series No. 489.
• 1990 – Deborah Lisson's book The Devil's Own, which is aimed at young adults, is also based on the events of Batavia mutiny and massacre. This book won the Western Australian Premier's Award in 1991.
• 1991 – A sub-plot in Gary Crew's novel Strange Objects included two men who sailed Batavia, Wouter Loos, and Jan Pelgrom.
• 1993 – Philippe Godard's book The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia provides a wealth of illustrations, along with details of Batavia's construction, objectives and, of course, the traumatic events on the islands off the West Australian coast. At the end of the book is an English translation of Pelsaert's pamphlet regarding the events on Batavia. The construction of Batavia's second incarnation is also covered, with a number of detailed photographs of the new ship.
• 1995 – Prospero Productions made a 52 minute documentary entitled Batavia Wreck, mutiny and murder, filmed on location.
• 2000 – Arabella Edge's novel The Company is also based on the events of 1629, as is Kathryn Heyman's novel The Accomplice (2003). Whereas Edge tells the story from the perspective of Cornelisz, the chief mutineer, Heyman's The Accomplice is based on the predicament of Judith Bastiaansz, the Predikant's daughter.
• 2000 – The story was also told in a one-hour radio drama, Southland, written by D. J. Britton and broadcast in September 2000 on BBC Radio 4.
• 2001 – The story was retold in the form of an acclaimed opera, simply titled Batavia, composed by Richard Mills and first performed by Opera Australia.
• 2002 – Architect Frits van Dongen, graphic designer Kees Nieuwenhuijzen, and poet Gerrit Kouwenaar built an apartment complex in Amsterdam named Batavia, with a poem referencing the ship imprinted into a wall of the building.
• 2002 – Historian Mike Dash's book, Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny, told the whole story in more detail than ever before, making extensive use of Dutch archival sources to explore the early life of Cornelisz, and a number of the Batavia's other passengers and crew.
• 2006 – Writer Simon Leys published The Wreck of the Batavia: A True Story, relating the fate of the Batavia and her crew. The French version of this book, Les Naufragés du Batavia (2003), won the Guizot Prize.
• 2010 – Writer Greta van der Rol published Die a Dry Death, a historical novel based on the true events of the wreck of the Batavia. It makes an argument for the innocence of the captain of the ship, Adriaen Jacobsz. (2010)
• 2010 – The Blue-eyed Aborigine by Rosemary Hayes is a historical novel for young adults portraying a wreck survivor's story.
• 2011 – Batavia by Peter FitzSimons is a non-fiction account of the Batavia.