author
Robert Knox
d. 1720
Best known for a vivid firsthand account of Sri Lanka in the 17th century, this English sea captain turned years of captivity into a book that fascinated readers across Europe. His writing is still valued for the close detail it gives about everyday life, trade, and landscape.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1641, he was an English sea captain associated with the East India Company. On a voyage to India, he was stranded in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and spent nearly twenty years in the inland Kingdom of Kandy before escaping.
After returning to England, he wrote An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies (1681), a work that became one of the earliest widely read English descriptions of the island. Readers have long remembered it for its practical, observant style and for the unusual position of its author: not a passing visitor, but someone who had lived there for many years.
He died in 1720. Today, he is remembered as both a mariner and a careful recorder of the world he saw, especially for the lasting value of his account of Sri Lanka.