Hendrik Hamel

author

Hendrik Hamel

1630–1692

A Dutch bookkeeper and sailor for the VOC, he became famous for surviving a shipwreck in Korea and writing one of Europe’s first detailed accounts of the country. His journal turned years of hardship and captivity into a rare window on 17th-century Joseon life.

1 Audiobook

Verhaal van het vergaan van het jacht de Sperwer En van het wedervaren der schipbreukelingen op het eiland Quelpaert en het vasteland van Korea (1653-1666) met eene beschrijving van dat rijk

Verhaal van het vergaan van het jacht de Sperwer En van het wedervaren der schipbreukelingen op het eiland Quelpaert en het vasteland van Korea (1653-1666) met eene beschrijving van dat rijk

by Hendrik Hamel

About the author

Born in Gorinchem in 1630, Hendrik Hamel worked for the Dutch East India Company and sailed to Asia during the great age of Dutch overseas trade. In 1653, while traveling toward Japan aboard De Sperwer, he was shipwrecked on Jeju Island off Korea.

Hamel and the surviving crew were not allowed to leave Korea and spent about thirteen years there. After escaping with a small group in 1666 and making his way back to the Dutch trading world, he wrote an account of what had happened. That journal became the first widely known Western description of Korea and remained an important source of information in Europe for many years.

Although parts of his life remain unclear, Hamel is remembered less as a conqueror or explorer than as an accidental witness to history. His story endures because it combines adventure, endurance, and careful observation, preserving a rare firsthand glimpse of Korea in the 1600s.