The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

I've waited patiently for David Grann's latest non-fiction work The Wager: a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (#1,145) to appear on my Holds List ever since I heard him being interviewed about the book on NPR.  The story of these eighteenth-century British sailors is quite astonishing, not least because any of the men aboard The Wager made it home to England alive.

The Wager had originally set off from England as one of a small fleet tasked by the Government with a secret mission: to find and capture a Spanish galleon loaded with its annual shipment of silver, gold and other valuables before it could reach Spain.  The best prospect was to search the waters off the western coast of South America.  But the greatest danger on the voyage wasn't the Spanish enemy; it was the weather off Cape Horn, one of the most treacherous coasts of the world.  Unrelenting storms, winds and raging seas soon separated the British ships and The Wager found itself wrecked just off the shore of Wager Island.  The crew was already starving, and those that made it successfully onto the island found that there was virtually nothing there to eat.  Things went downhill from there...

Miraculously, years after the ships departed England, a ragtag group of survivors showed up in Plymouth, England with a wonderous tale to tell of their adventures.  All seemed to be going well until a few more years passed, and another group of survivors made it back to British shores with an equally miraculous, but totally contradictory tale of their survival.  What was the British Admiralty to do, except to court martial them all?  Seemingly having escaped death by drowning, starvation or capture by the enemy, were they to be executed for mutiny by their own British Navy?

David Grann has spun an amazing story out of the long-forgotten documents housed in the British archives.  The sensation of its time, the fate of the crew of The Wager has largely faded into the past until David Grann has shed new light on the consequences of her voyage.  It's a compelling read.