A small independent press
Dutch voyages and captivities of the seventeenth century, in readable modern English
Losgeld Press publishes first-hand accounts of travel, capture and ransom, written in Dutch some three and a half centuries ago and long out of reach for readers of English.
Losgeld is the Dutch word for ransom: the price that stood between a captive and home.
Our first book, coming soon on Amazon: Emanuel d’Aranda, Turkish Slavery →
What we publish
Merchants, soldiers and seamen from the Low Countries wrote vivid accounts of what befell them abroad: voyages, sea fights, captivity in North Africa, the long negotiations for release. Many of these books were widely read in their own century. Today most survive only in old Dutch, in old type.
We translate them carefully from the original Dutch editions into modern literary English: faithful in fact, faithful in spirit, natural to read. Nothing is invented, embellished or softened; the author’s own voice and moral frame are kept. Short notes explain only what a modern reader would otherwise miss.
From the first book
About ten in the forenoon the two ships joined the caravel, all still without a flag. Then in a moment they gained the wind of us under full sail, a musket-shot off. On the stern of the largest ship stood a Turk with a furled flag in his arms, and a Christian slave, who cried, Strike for Algiers. At that cry the man who held the flag let it fly. It was green, with silver crescents upon it. How welcome that flag was to us, and the sight of our being carried to Algiers, may easily be imagined.