This is a truly thrilling story that few people could ever imagine happening today. To be lost at sea for months without the prospect of rescue and all the while knowing that their meager supply of food will soon run out must have made the crew of the Essex desperate enough to do anything. The setting makes for one of the very best books ever written about this type of tragedy. What they reluctantly considered to do for survival, and eventually did, is still shocking even today. But how many people today, if faced with the same situation, would’ve done things differently?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Owen Chase returned to New England after his ordeal but didn’t shy away from what happened with the Essex tragedy in the Pacific. He wrote this book (possibly with the help of a ghostwriter) in order to let people know the truth about the disaster that would later inspire the classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Chase went back to the sea afterwards to the only life he knew, whaling, carving out a successful career as a whaler until his death decades later.