In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Summary and Reviews

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
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Book Summary Information

Author: Nathaniel Philbrick
Edition: Audio Cassette
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Audiobook
Published: 2000-05-08
ISBN: 0141802189
Number of pages: 4
Publisher: Penguin Audio

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

Book Review: Great white whale sinks ship . . . . who'd believe that story?
Summary: 5 Stars

Real-life whaling disaster that Melville borrowed as the basis for Moby-Dick: or, The Whale (Modern Library Classics) moves crisply in Philbrick's matter-of-fact style that emphasizes the horror of the story. The Essex left Nantucket in 1819 on a typically 2 to 3-year whaling tour, then sank when it was rammed by a giant sperm whale--twice! This unprecedented attack left the 20 whalers stunned and stranded 1,500 miles from land in the middle of the Pacific.

Philbrick relies on the accounts of several of the survives, but also does a good job of bringing just enough knowledge at just the right times from his research on specific aspects of survival, sailing, and cannibalism, for example, as it applies to the narrative.

One measure of the worth of a book is the avenues to additional reading it open ups, and I have added Moby-Dick: or, The Whale (Modern Library Classics) (read it and rated it a classic!) and Richard Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" (tried, couldn't get through it) to my reading list.

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