Olfert Dapper

Olfert Dapper (January 1636 – 29 December 1689) was a Dutch physician and writer who wrote books about world history and geography although he never travelled outside the Netherlands.

Biography

Olfert Dapper was born in January 1636 in the Jordaan in Amsterdam. On 6 January 1636, he was baptized in the Lutheran church in Amsterdam.

In 1663 wrote a book on the history of Amsterdam. His Description of Africa (1668) is a key text for African studies. His book "is one of the most authoritative 17th-century accounts on Africa published in Dutch. Translations appeared in English, French, and German. Peter S. Beagle dedicated The Last Unicorn to Dapper for his reports of unicorns in Maine and in 2012 wrote a fictional account of Dapper's travels.