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Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex: The Complete Illustrated edition

$30.00

Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex: The Complete Illustrated edition

SKU: 9780760357361 Category: Product ID: 203937

Description

Temporarily out of stock

Title: Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex: The Complete Illustrated edition
Author: CHASE OWEN
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 28/06/2017
Imprint: VOYAGEUR PRESS
Price: $30.00
Publishing status: Active

Owen Chase was the first mate on the ill-fated American whaling ship Essex, which was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific Ocean in 1820.
The crew spent months at sea in leaking boats and endured the blazing sun, attacks by killer whales, and lack of food. The men were forced to resort to cannibalism before the final eight survivors were rescued. Herman Melville based his 1851 novel, Moby-Dick, on this sinking.
Chase recorded the tale of the ship’s sinking and the following events with harrowing clarity in the Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex:
‘I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods [500 m or 550 yards] directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed of around 24 knots (44 km/h), and it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head about half out of the water, and in that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship.’
Filled throughout with period and contemporary art, photographs, maps, and artefacts, this is a beautifully illustrated edition of a classic American memoir, augmented with the writings of other participants, as well as the perspectives of period and contemporary historians

ISBN: 9780760357361
Dimension: 276mm X 236mm
Pages: 224

Additional information

Dimensions 276 × 236 mm