The book indeed became a bestseller, and is also of worth in assessing events and customs outside Western Europe, including Russia and parts Asia, and gives insight into marketing strategies in the publishing industry of the late 17th century.
The perillous and most unhappy voyages recounts Struys's travels: to Asia between 1647 and 1651, in the Mediterranean (in Venetian service, fighting the Ottoman Empire) between 1656 and 1657, to the Caspian Sea in Russian service in 1668, and to the East (Batavia, Dutch East Indies) in 1672–1673.
The book was a bestseller and was translated in various European languages, and made Jan Struys famous.
While these omissions, coupled with a lack of consistency in style, might provide evidence for the author's low literacy (as a sailor he wouldn't be expected to be literate, and documentary evidence from marriage records proves his illiteracy), according to historian Kees Boterbloem they actually suggest a specific marketing strategy: an unnamed ghostwriter producing a text based on the adventures of a lower-class, illiterate, but experienced traveler.
[5] In 1660, living as a merchant in Moscow, he provided evidence for the popularity at the time of the kaftan among the Russians.