Bobbie L. (nascargal) reviewed on 7/9/2006 + 352 more book reviews

In 1819 the 239-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage to hunt whales. Fifteen months later, the unthinkable happened: in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, 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. The ordeal of the Essex was as well known in its time as the story of the Titanic is today.

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