In the Heart of the Sea

by Philbrick, Nathaniel

• ISBN13: 9781568959443
• ISBN10: 1568959443
• Edition: Large
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-01
• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc

Summary

Winner 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.

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