Order
Online
Click &
Collect
Free Local
Delivery
Author: Grann, David
Maritime history
Published on 4 January 2024 by Simon & Schuster Ltd in the United Kingdom.
Paperback | 368 pages, 2x8pp colour
196 x 129 x 29 | 324g
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BALLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION* *SELECTED AS ONE OFBARACKOBAMA'SFAVOURITE BOOKS OF2023* 'The beauty ofThe Wagerunfurls like a great sail... one of the finest nonfiction books Ive ever read' GuardianThe greatest sea story ever told SpectatorA cracking yarn Granns taste for desperate predicaments finds its fullest expression here ObserverFrom the internationalbestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martialthat reveals a shocking truth.
On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majestys ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain.While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell.The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-deathfor whomever the court found guilty could hang.
