Purchase
The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Penguin
May 2001
On Sale: May 1, 2001
320 pages ISBN: 0141001828 EAN: 9780141001821 Paperback
Add to Wish List
Fiction
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in
the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in
the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the
South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle
of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an
angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety
days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather,
hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures
in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick uses
little-known documents-including a long-lost account written
by the ship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about
whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling
events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense
and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a
monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy
in the American historical canon.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|