I wrote an academic journal article about this guy! It's interesting how often his story bubbles back up into popular consciousness in different contexts. In fact that continual repackaging of his narrative is in part what the article is about, along with the transmission of his invented language which is sort of like a Borges story before Borges:

https://www.academia.edu/4042982/No_Man_Is_an_Island_Early_M...

There's also this is a popularization of it that I wrote in 2013. His drawings of supposed "Formosan" (Taiwanese) townsfolk are worth checking out:

http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/10/made-in-taiwan-an-eigh...