The Wreck of Batavia by Simon Leys
It’s a little known story to those outside of Australia, but the story of the Batavia is one of Australian history’s most tragic events, a veritable Lord of the Flies come to life. In The Wreck of the Batavia, author Simon Leys gives his take on the ship Batavia, pride of the Dutch East India Company who was wrecked on the edge of a coral archipelago some fifty miles from the western coast of Australia on her maiden voyage. While most of the three hundred men, women, and children aboard escape drowning, they are soon subjected to the terrorization and methodical massacre by a psychopathic Jeronimus Cornelisz, who escaped the Netherlands on charges of heresy. Cornelisz plans to start his own kingdom and control it through fear, subjecting his victims to routine rape and murder. He ends up killing over 120 people before his reign of terror comes to an end. Leys also pairs this story with his essay Prosper, detailing his summer when he joined a crew of a tuna-fishing boat that was one of the last boats still working under a sail.

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Company: The Story of Murderer by Arabella Edge
Author Arabella Edge takes a different perspective with her novel revolving around the real-life event, this time from the mind of the madmen himself, Jeronimus Cornelisz. Cornelisz, a corrupt man who considers himself God’s equal and the rightful heir to Batavia’s gold and silver, incites a mutiny aboard the Dutch East India Company flaship only to have it run aground on a reef and sink, taking all of its treasures with it. Most of the crew and passengers survive, and look to the trained apothecary as their savior, but soon begin to realize the extent of Cornelisz’s madness. For forty days, Cornelisz instigates campaigns of murder to both instill fear in his victims and stretch out the ship’s meager rescued resources.