In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

This book gave an accurate picture of the whaling industry in the early 1900s. The men on those boats were hardworking sailors harvesting the useful parts of whales far from home two to three years at a time.

“With its huge scarred head halfway out of the water and its tail beating the ocean into a white-water wake more than forty feet across, the whale approached the ship at twice its original speed. . . . it was too late for a change of course. With a tremendous cracking and splintering of oak, the whale struck the ship just beneath the anchor secured at the cathead on the port bow.”A reader confronted with this description might be forgiven for assuming that it could only have come from Herman Melville’s massive 19th-century novel <i>Moby Dick</i>. Where else in the world would you find such an incredible, far-fetched idea as a giant whale attacking a ship? But as unlikely as it may seem, the scene is not fiction but taken from Nathaniel Philbrick’s non-fiction account of the sinking of the whaleship <i>Essex</i> on November 20, 1819. <i>In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex</i>, published in 2001, is a gripping and sometimes appalling rendering of the story of the first Nantucket whale ship ever to be sunk as a result of an attack by a whale (though not the last). And the original accounts of the story, spreading in the years following the event, were, in fact, the inspiration for Melville’s novel, published in 1851. The great 19th-century novelist even becomes an important thread in Philbrick’s narrative.<i>In the Heart of the Sea</i> is both gripping storytelling and agonizing analysis of the desperate lengths starving castaways on the high seas have gone to in history to survive. The dreadful realities of the <i>Essex</i> survivors during three months at sea in small boats include violent storms, deadly heat, starvation, cannibalism, drawing lots for execution, and more. Though Philbrick lays bare the suffering of the men, their courage, will to live, determination, and perseverance are inspiring. It’s easy to see why <i>In the Heart of the Sea</i> won the National Book Award. The story is gripping, the research is extensive, and the writing powerful.

After seeing an article about an Australian guy rescued at sea a friend recommended this book. The story of the whaleship Essex and the crew is amazing. I would suggest reading it.

Nice intro to whaling and a story of survival. Good details throughout and why each is important. You find yourself pulled into the whaleboats and feel guilty for leaving the men stranded while you eat dinner or sleep. Enjoyable

First, let me dispatch any brooding reader from his or her fence-sitting about whether this book is worth the purchase price and time needed to read it through: it's all that and more, and more still. You will find yourself so drawn into this narrative that I suspect you will be overwhelmed, as I was, by an intense desire to have plentiful stores of water and food nearby while you read it.With one exception, I have never before read a work of historical nonfiction which held my interest like In the Heart of the Sea (the exception was Jeff Shaara's The Glorious Cause). You will repeatedly find yourself on the verge of total astonishment at the plight these men endured. Philbrick builds a mood of unrelenting gloom and horror and the book ends up reading more like a Stephen King novel than a history book. I feel totally comfortable recommending this book on the merits of the writing quality alone, because the writing is exceptional.So many new history books attempt to modernize the standard historical monograph by giving their books narrative structures, but in so doing, the writers end up taking something important and objective away from the reading experience. Philbrick doesn't do this, and I think he succeeds with his narrative precisely because he has two first-hand accounts of the disaster and because of the sensation this story caused and the flurry of press and ancillary writing generated regarding the Essex at the time. Of course, the existence of a talisman like Moby Dick certainly helped, as was Philbrick's oft-mentioned research into other whaling and sea disasters, most notably Captain Bligh and his troubles with The Bounty. It all comes together to give Philbrick's narrative weaving and artistic license an air of truth and detached journalistic reality, as though Philbrick himself had been present with the Essex survivors.Appertaining to its value as historical scholarship, In the Heart of the Sea seems to be as rigorously vetted and researched as anyone could expect given the limited information and catatonic delirium which, at nearly all points along the voyage, must have gripped the Chase and Nickerson, the two principle sources of information. In addition to his account of the doomed Essex voyage, Philbrick introduces readers to the unusual economy and personality of Nantucket. As a Folger descendant (the family name is mentioned several times in the book, and indeed, one of the owners of the Essex was named Folger), the geneological value of this brief adumbration about the town is fascinating. Furthermore, at the end of the book, the reader is greeted by what I perceive to be the most lucid, readable notes section that I have ever encountered before in any book and, as a result, this section stands as a useful tool and free bonus to the interested reader.I am quite hesitant to offer and critical remarks of this book at all, for fear someone reading this review might notice only that I had a criticism at all and would, without reading any details, forego purchase. My only criticism of the book is Philbrick's repeated injection of contemporary survival psychology. This was at times helpful, but I usually found these instances distracted me from the darkness and terror Philbrick had so carefully and successfully drawn me into. I wished he would have simply left the reader to commiserate with the Essex crew instead of, by including this running psychological commentary, being tacitly reminded that this was only a book. Again, not an issue at all. Buy the book.Thank you.

Livre arriver en bon état! Je dois encore le lire ^^

A few years ago I read 'The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex' written by Owen Chase  The Wreck of the Whaleship "Essex" , the first mate on the doomed Essex. I therefore picked up this book with mixed feelings but I need not have worried. It was the story of the Essex which inspired Hermann Melville, himself a crewman on a whaleship, to write Moby Dick a fictionalised account based on the story of the 'Essex'.I have never read 'Moby Dick' but this is a gripping and informative real-life account of the sinking of the 'Essex' and the awful consequences for its crew. The ship was attacked in the far Pacific by a sperm whale allegedly 85 feet long. Two head butts from the whale sealed the fate of the 'Essex'. The day to day accounts of the voyage, the sinking, and the aftermath are drawn from the writings of those who were there, including Owen Chase. The book also benefits from a recently discovered account written by Thomas Nickerson the youngest boy aboard the ship. He was only 14 when the ship set sail with him as the cabin boy. He survived to tell the tale and like all those who survived he returned to sea.Initially the entire crew survived the sinking of the ship but only a minority survived the aftermath of 90 days or more in open boats striving to reach land. It is a story of awful things happening to ordinary men. Immediately after the sinking of the 'Essex' the men decided to avoid sailing for the known islands of the Society group or the Marquesas because of rumours of fierce cannibalism amongst their inhabitants. That was a bad decision which had the result of the surviving crew members indulging in cannibalism themselves in order to prolong their lives.Philbrick's account of the whaling industry and its processes and its economics is very interesting. So too is his account of the role of black (African American) crewmen on the whaling ships. About one in three of the crew of the 'Essex' were black seamen. Philbrick draws a very vivid picture of Nantucket at the beginning of the 19th century as a Quaker dominated, whale-centred society. He also traces the decline in the island's fortunes to faded glory as the whaling fleet withered away later in the century. Finally he brings us up to date with the current up-market style of the place as a tourist magnet. How times change.All in all, a gripping story well written. The Wreck of the Whaleship "Essex"

This is another book that I was introduced to because I saw the film first. The movie I felt was more the fluffed up storytelling side while the book was driven home with solid hard facts. The movie I enjoyed but the book is pure quality.The book begins with facts, who is who, their backgrounds, details of the ships the recruitment of the crew. The pay they were expected to make and the work they were required to do. I was spellbound with the remedies of treating illnesses, which at times made me physically gip! This was a true history book of facts.I was introduced to each person that would sail on the ill-fated ship The Essex, what happens was documented by the 14-year-old cabin boy in 1820, as they encountered disaster after disaster in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The whaling ship was not due back home for 2 years and the crew of twenty would be diminished.For the unlucky crew of The Essex, nature was about to hit back at them when a huge whale attacked the ship causing so much damage that the crew had to take to three rowboats. What follows is an account of how some of the crew managed to survive the 90 days they were at sea.This is an absolutely engrossing book to read, there is little or no emotion from the author but he certainly stirred up enough in me for both of us. There are glimmers of hope, like a preverbal carrot continually been hung in front of these desperate men, that were just like cruel taunts. An island with no visible water, calculating the wrong direction and what to do when the food ran out?The book goes on after the investigation of what had happened and the lives of the survivors afterward.The book Moby Dick was created because of this factual event, a book I must revisit. This book is not just memorable it is unforgettable.

Well this was quite something. Recommended by a friend, this is the true story that Herman Melville based his classic, Moby Dick on. Philbrick does an excellent job of pulling all his source material together to tell the story as accurately and effectively as possible, something that he succeeds in doing admirably.It should be pointed out that this is a tale of woe from the first to last page. The story details Captain Pollard's first command. The Nantucket whale ship Essex on a voyage to hunt Sperm whales in the Pacific ocean. Basically everything that could possibly go wrong, does go wrong and then some. Culminating in absolute unmitigated horror.Much more than the story of a whale attacking a ship and sinking it, the book is quite an education as well. Eminently readable and compulsive, we get to learn about not just the lives of the whalers and the vagrancies of whaling but the history of the island of Nantucket and societies of the Southern and Pacific oceans, the horrors of starvation and cannibalism, the rise and fall of the whaling industry and the effects on the lives of the people it touches and indeed the flora and fauna that suffers as a result. It really seems to capture the Zeitgeist of an era long gone.There is so much of interest packed in here that there is not a dull page from cover to cover. An excellent, fascinating and valuable read, I highly recommend it to just about anyone. Although probably not good if you are easily perturbed, as it reaches into the depths of hell and does not return.

I never thought there was a recorded account of an actual sinking of a ship by a whale...how wrong I was! This is the true story of the sinking of the whale ship Essex by an 80 ton sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1820. This is `thee' actual story that prompted Herman Melville to write his famous Moby Dick novel.Having been rammed by an angry whale the Essex sank within ten minutes and its twenty one man crew took to the sea with scant provisions in three whaling boats. What follows is a four thousands mile plus sea odyssey of incredible suffering and privation. Despite some serious errors of judgement where closer landfall could have been reached such as Easter Island, Pitcairn or Tahiti...the survivors show remarkable seamanship in reaching Chile after spending a desperate three months adrift.This is not a tale along the lines of Shackleton's epic South however where all live to tell the tale of their ordeal. Only two of the three boats reach safety and only eight of the twenty one crewmen survive the journey, the remainder die a terrible death mainly from lack of food, water or from the elements. When I say `mainly', some of the occupants die by `lot' selection by their crewmates and are simply killed....you can guess what comes after that...yes you guessed it messmate cannibalism!This is a well written explanatory book that as well as highlighting the individual characters involved also gives a good descriptive narrative of the whaling techniques and equipment of the period. The description of the boat journeys however is the coup de main as the suffering and the despair of the crew leaps out from the pages....a great read!