Silvester Jourdain ( - ), was an English traveler who became a colonist at the Jamestown, Virginia settlement. During the journey in 1609, a tropical storm caused the ship, the Sea Venture to be run aground on the uninhabited St. George's Island, Bermuda, with Jourdain, George Somers, Thomas Gates, William Strachey, and other settlers marooned for nine months.

Silvester Jourdain was old enough in 1603 to ship goods from Lyme Regis, Dorset.Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jourdain, Silvester. (2020, December 27). In Wikisource . Retrieved 17:46, August 22, 2024, from https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Jourdain,_Silvester&oldid=10739369

Silvester authored a pamphlet in 1610, A Discovery of the Barmvdas, otherwise called the Ile of Divels (later part of the 1613 publication, A Plaine Description of the Barmvdas, now called Sommer Ilands, etc.), which scholars have attributed as inspiration for William Shakespeare's The Tempest.Malone, Edmond (1808). An Account of the Incidents, from which the Title and Part of the Story of Shakespeare's Tempest were derived, and its true date ascertained. London: C. and R. Baldwin, New Bridge-Street.

Silvester died unmarried in the parish of St Sepulchre, in the spring of 1650. He was the son of William Jourdain of Lyme Regis, a brother to merchant Ignatius Jourdain of Exeter, and a cousin of John Jourdain.

See also True Reportory

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Attribution

External links A plaine description of the Barmudas (PDF) on WikiCommons