Updated September 2026
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About William Dampier
William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, privateer and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between the 16th-century explorer Sir Francis Drake and the 18th-century explorer James Cook; he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter.
Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Authors like William Dampier
Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers, free texts from Project Gutenberg. Last updated September 2026.