author

Cornelis Janszoon Coen

A 17th-century Dutch sailor and chronicler, he is best known for the journal he kept during a voyage to the seas north and east of Japan. His writing offers a rare firsthand window into early European exploration of East Asia.

1 Audiobook

Reize van Maarten Gerritsz. Vries in 1643 naar het Noorden en Oosten van Japan

Reize van Maarten Gerritsz. Vries in 1643 naar het Noorden en Oosten van Japan

by Cornelis Janszoon Coen, Philipp Franz von Siebold, Maarten Gerritszoon Vries

About the author

Cornelis Janszoon Coen was a Dutch seafarer and writer whose name is linked to a travel journal from 1643. He is known as the author of an account of the voyage of Maarten Gerritsz Vries, an expedition that sailed toward Cathay, Tartary, and the waters around northern Japan.

His journal survives as an important historical source because it records what a participant saw and understood during a major Dutch voyage in East Asia. Rather than being remembered for a large body of literary work, he is notable for this vivid eyewitness record, which has helped later readers and historians study navigation, exploration, and European views of the region in the seventeenth century.

Reliable biographical details about his personal life appear to be scarce in the sources I could confirm here, so it is safest to describe him mainly through the work that is securely associated with his name.