In the Heart of the Sea

by Philbrick, Nathaniel

• ISBN13: 9781568951782
• ISBN10: 1568951787
• Edition: Large
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc

Summary

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of detail from archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy. At once a literary companion and a riveting adventure tale, In the Heart of the Sea is a vital work of American history.

Author Biography

Nathaniel Philbrick director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association

Table of Contents

Preface February 23, 1821	xi
Crew of the Essex	xix
Nantucket	1	(38)
Knockdown	39	(23)
First Blood	62	(24)
The Lees of Fire	86	(21)
The Attack	107	(21)
The Plan	128	(17)
At Sea	145	(27)
Centering Down	172	(16)
The Island	188	(22)
The Whisper of Necessity	210	(18)
Games of Chance	228	(18)
In the Eagle's Shadow	246	(18)
Homecoming	264	(23)
Consequences	287	(34)
Epilogue Bones	321	(12)
Notes	333	(70)
Select Bibliography	403	(20)
Acknowledgments	423