The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick
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15
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Average rating4
Recounts the 1820 sinking of the whaleship "Essex" by an enraged sperm whale and how the crew of young men survived against impossible odds.
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Yes, it's a book for elementary age children, but The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick was an excellent introduction for me into the events that inspired Herman Melville to write his masterpiece. The Essex left Nantucket and traveled around Cape Horn and up around the Pacific Coast of South America when the ship attempted to harpoon a whale in late November. The angry whale retaliated by striking the 238 ton whaling ship twice, causing the ship to sink. The crew abandoned the ship, and took to the three whaling boats. Of the twenty crewmen, only eight were rescued, and the rescues did not take place until February, March, and for the last three, April. It's a devastating story, and, now that I've read a condensed version, I want to read more. I'm off to reserve Nathaniel Philbrook's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex to read next.
