Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock [Hardcover]

Thomas Farel Heffernan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2002

A bloody mutiny on a whaling journey, followed by an incredible tale of survival on land and sea.

Samuel Comstock knew he was born to do some great thing, but his only legacy was a reign of terror. Two years out of Nantucket on a whaling voyage in 1824, he organized a mutiny and murdered the officers of the Globe. It was a premeditated act; in his sea chest Comstock carried the seeds, tools, and weapons with which he would found his own island kingdom. He had often described these plans to one of his brothers, William. But the chief witness and chronicler of the mutiny was young George Comstock, who neither participated in nor approved of his brother's savage deed.

Within days of settling on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands, Comstock was murdered by his fellow mutineers. Six innocent seamen—George among them—seized the Globe and escaped; most of the rest were killed by natives. Two survivors lived for twenty-two months, half-prisoners and half-adoptees of the natives, until they were rescued in a bold and dangerous maneuver by a landing party from the U.S. schooner Dolphin.

The Globe's story is one of terror, adventure, endurance, and luck. It is also the story of one of the most bizarre and frightening minds that ever went to sea.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Thomas Heffernan's Mutiny on the Globe is the tale of 19th-century psychopathy on the high seas. In 1824, to satisfy a long-held dream of creating a desert island kingdom, Samuel Comstock, of Nantucket and New York City, led a ghastly mutiny aboard a whaler in the South Seas. Within days, Comstock, who had begun establishing his monarchy in the Marshall Islands, was murdered by his fellow mutineers. Some of the remaining seamen returned to America; others were butchered by Marshallese, and two were held in benign captivity by the natives for 21 months. Heffernan's account of the mutiny is oddly brief. The bulk of his narrative traces Comstock's inexplicably bizarre pre-mutiny life and the post-mutiny existence of the two marooned sailors. Though the self-consciously artful prose too often interferes with the primary narrative--as do the many tangential historical asides--the book does contain some haunting and macabre moments. --H. O'Billovich

From Publishers Weekly

In yet another title about the Globe, Heffernan (Stove by a Whale) presents the violent story of Samuel Comstock, clever ruffian, cunning trouble-maker and all around hooligan, who led a bloody mutiny aboard the Nantucket whaler. After dispatching the captain and officers of the ship, Comstock's delusions of setting up a personal empire in the Marshall Islands (and conscripting the natives into his personal army) met an apex in madness, and the 21-year-old was gunned down by fellow mutineers shortly after reaching the Mili Atoll. In the ensuing power vacuum, six sailors fled to the ship, abandoning the other nine to face the irate natives; seven were killed while the remaining two were kept as "pets." Upon learning the fate of the whaler, the U.S. Navy mounted an unprecedented rescue mission and set a standard for policing the waters of the South Pacific. Historian Heffernan wonderfully revives the mutiny and its aftermath in this dynamic, tightly edited record that never shows the toil of labor. Working from a wealth of primary source materials (among others, varying accounts from Comstock's brothers, the two marooned mariners and senior Lt. Hiram Paulding, who helped lead the rescue), the author balances the narrative with well-placed insights and quips, keeping the action relentless and oftentimes terrifying. (Heffernan's description of mayhem Comstock causes in the Chilean port of Valparaiso is an unexpected diversion on a par with the violence of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.) With exhaustive appendixes and notes; illus. and maps not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (April 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393041638
• ISBN-13: 978-0393041637
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,023,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There are better versions, November 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock (Hardcover)

After making an honest attempt at reading Heffernan's account of the mutiny on the Globe I decided the story was much too interesting to be spoiled by his telling of events.
Gregory Gibson's excellent book Demon of the Waters tells the same story in a far more exciting and informative manner, a real page-turner at the level of Junger and Philbrick.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as Good as Some Other Recent Nautical Books, June 7, 2002

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock (Hardcover)

There has been quite a glut lately of books about nautical disasters, both recent and historic. Some like "The Perfect Storm" and "In the Heart of the Sea" have been excellent. Others have been less so. Unfortunately, "Mutiny on the Globe," while not awful, belongs in the latter category. It faces some tough competition, being one of two books released this year on the savage mutiny led bed Nantucket whaleman Samuel Comstock in 1822. It is also in competition with "Batavia's Graveyard," another book released a couple of months ago about a historical mutiny which is far superior to this one.

Part of the problem is that only a brief portion of "Mutiny on the Globe" is devoted to the voyage and the mutiny itself. Author Thomas Heffernan spends a long time detailing the early life of Smauel Comstock, which is not all that interesting and pales by comparison to "Batavia's Graveyard"'s gruesome accounts of life at sea during the so-called golden age of sail. The book is also strangely lacking in details about Nantucket whaling, which were so memorable in "In the Heart of the Sea" (the events of which took place around the same time). The last third of the narrative is devoted to the stories of the survivors of the mutiny, though the accounts of the two sailors who were forced to live in captivity among Marshall Island natives for two years before being rescued are also not worth the amount of narrative space they are given.

Heffernan is a decent storyteller and tries his best to liven up his tale. The main problem seems to be that the material he had to work with seems more suited to a long magazine article than a full length book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mostly filler, October 24, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mutiny on the Globe: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock (Hardcover)

There is simply not enough material here to justify a book. I got to the point where Comstock died and said, "That's it?" This should have been a magazine article at best. The actual mutiny and aftermath take up 50 pages or so. The majority of the book is two types of filler (along with several pointless appendices to get the page count up). The first is an excessively long rundown of the very few facts known about Samuel Comstock's prior life padded with a ton of speculation from the author. The second (and majority of the book) is an account of the two survivors living among the natives. This has some interesting points, but not enough, and is a completely separate and largely unrelated story from the mutiny itself.