In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship EssexWinner of the 2000 National Book Award for Non-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. |
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In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Nathaniel Philbrick Limited preview - 2001 |
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Nathaniel Philbrick No preview available - 2001 |
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Nathaniel Philbrick No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
aboard the Essex African American American beach began Benjamin Lawrence blubber boat-crews boatsteerer body bones bread cannibalism Cape Captain Pollard Chappel Charles Chase remembered Chase wrote Chase's boat Clifford Ashley crew members death DeBlois deck Ducie Island erson Essex crew Essex disaster Essex survivors Galapagos George Pollard green hands harbor hardtack harpoon head Heffernan Henderson Island Herman Melville Isaac Cole killing knew lard live Macy's masts mate Matthew Joy Melville miles Moby-Dick months morning Nantucket whaleship narrative Nick Nickerson remembered Nickerson wrote night Obed Macy ocean officers Offshore Ground once ordeal Owen Chase Owen Coffin Pacific Quaker reached sail sailors ship ship's sight Society Islands soon South America sperm whale Starbuck starvation steering oar story sufferings survival T]he tain Thomas Nickerson tion tortoises tucket vessel voyage waves whaleboat whalemen whaleship Essex William Comstock wind wreck وو