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In 1819, the 238-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage to hunt whales. Fifteen months later the Essex was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale. Fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, the 20-man crew set out in three small boats for South America, almost 3,000 miles away. Three months later, only eight were left alive, the survivors having been forced to eat the bodies of their dead shipmates. This book shares a fantastic...
Author
Publisher
Dover Publications
Pub. Date
[2015]
Language
English
Description
In 1819, the American whaler Essex was sailing deep into the great equatorial hunting grounds of the Pacific when it was destroyed by a maddened sperm whale. By all reports, the 85-foot whale deliberately rammed the ship twice and sank it. The incident, which occurred in the same year that Herman Melville was born, became a primary source of inspiration for Moby-Dick. Indeed, much of the detail and color in the final chapter of Melville's work is...
Author
Publisher
Wesleyan University Press
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"The "exciting tale" of the first documented sinking of a ship by a whale -- and the survivor's narrative that inspired Moby-Dick ( Choice ). "On November 20, 1820, a great whale rammed the Nantucket whaler Essex , two thousand miles west of Ecuador. Owen Chase, her first mate, and twenty-nine other men took to the boats; eight eventually survived. Herman Melville's debt to Chase's Narrative has been known since Moby-Dick appeared, but little has...
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