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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder Hardcover – April 18, 2023

by David Grann (Author)

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, TIME, Smithsonian, NPR, Vulture, Kirkus Reviews

“Riveting...Reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.” —Time

"A tour de force of narrative nonfiction.” —The Wall Street Journal

On January 28, 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 Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that 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-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.

Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Doubleday
Publication date

April 18, 2023
Dimensions

6.43 x 1.22 x 9.53 inches
ISBN-10

0385534264
ISBN-13

978-0385534260
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Get to know this book

What's it about?
A thrilling tale of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth.
Amazon editors say...
The personalities aboard this 1800s ship are made for history books, an epic narrative that is shocking and utterly absorbing.
Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat.
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We all impose some coherence—some meaning—on the chaotic events of our existence. We rummage through the raw images of our memories, selecting, burnishing, erasing. We emerge as the heroes of our stories, allowing us to live with what we have done—or haven’t done.
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Constructing a single large warship could require as many as four thousand trees; a hundred acres of forest might be felled.
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of April 2023: David Grann, author of the best seller—and Amazon Best Book of the Year—Killers of the Flower Moon, unfurls a story of mayhem and murder, adventure, and reckless ambition on the high seas. Drawing on “archival debris: the washed-out logbooks, the moldering correspondence, the half-truthful journals, the surviving records from the troubling court-martial,” Grann brilliantly retells the story of the Wager—a British boat bound for South America on a secret mission during the Imperial War with Spain. The fate of the captain and crew was not to be one of conquest or fortune, but frightening storms, shipwreck, savagery, and betrayal. While you can almost feel the salt spray on your skin and the creak and crashing of wood against rock, Grann also captures the pomp and circumstance of imperialism, the brazen bravado of power-hungry men, and the inhuman brutality that fear conjures. The personalities aboard this 18th century ship are made for the history books, as the saying goes, and Grann, once again, has written an epic narrative that is both shocking and utterly absorbing. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Review

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Esquire, BookPage

“The most gripping sea-yarn I’ve read in years….A tour de force of narrative nonfiction. Mr. Grann’s account show how storytelling, whether to judges or readers, can shape individual and national fortunes – as well as our collective memories.”
— Wall Street Journal

“Glorious, steely…a tightly written, relentless, blow-by-blow account that is hard to put down”— The Washington Post

“As much a rousing adventure as an exploration of the power of narratives to shape our perception of reality.” — The New York Times

“Propulsive….finely-detailed…a ripping yarn…remarkable.” — The Boston Globe

“David Grann's latest work of narrative nonfiction, The Wager, is part Robinson Crusoe, part Lord of the Flies... Gripping”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR (Top 10 Book of 2023)

“Riveting...The Wager reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.” — Time Magazine

“The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail…He fixes his spyglass on the ravages of empire, of racism, of bureaucratic indifference and raw greed…one of the finest nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” — The Guardian (UK)

“The story of the shipwreck and its aftermath features scenery-chewing characters, unexpected twists and an almost unimaginable amount of human misery. Grann, the author of the acclaimed “Killers of the Flower Moon,” tells it with style. He manages to wring maximum drama out of the events and sketch out nuanced portraits of key players on the doomed ship."
— Associated Press

“His dogged search through ships’ logs and other contemporaneous accounts of the disaster and its mutinous aftermath has turned up the kind of sterling details that make his writing sing; he is also interested in the way these events were recorded and then recounted, with many different people trying to shape the memory of what happened. Grann simultaneously reconstructs history while telling a tale that is as propulsive and adventure-filled as any potboiler.”
— The Atlantic

"A genre-defying literary naval-history thriller, part Master and Commander, part Lord of the Flies" — Vanity Fair

"One of our finest nonfiction storytellers returns with a swashbuckling epic about shipwreck, scandal, mutiny, and murder" — Esquire

“A thrilling account…dramatic and engrossing.” — The Economist

“This astonishing tale of maritime warfare, mutiny and survival in the 18th-century Atlantic proves that a nonfiction book can be as thrilling as any summer blockbuster.”
— People

"The Wager" is a soaring literary accomplishment and seductive adventure tale… enthralling, seamlessly crafted… ‘The Wager’ then, is an accomplishment as vividly realized and ingeniously constructed as Grann's previous work, on par with Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm. Welcome a classic.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Gripping … Combining impeccable research with exceptional storytelling powers, [Grann] spirits the reader aboard a creaking wooden ship trapped at the eye of a howling storm… No book that you’re likely to read either this year or next will prove more dramatic and enthralling than Grann’s magnificent story of life both at sea and out on the desolate, mist-laden island whose solitary peak the Wager’s unfortunate crew aptly named Mount Misery”— Financial Times

“A masterclass in story-telling…With a series of twists and turns worthy of a well-plotted thriller, the author of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ uncovers an epic sea-faring tale…Epic true story as told by a master… David Grann has produced this riveting book…with the artistry of a superb novelist.” — The Toronto Star

“[Grann’s] meticulously researched stories, with their spare, simmering setups that almost always deliver stunning payoffs, have made him one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today…[Grann] has mastered a streamlined, propulsive type of narrative that readers devour for its hide-and-seek reveals…David’s stuff reads like literature, but every detail, every quote, every seemingly implausible glimpse into a subject’s mind is accounted for”
— New York Magazine

“Your favorite writer’s favorite writer for decades…David Grann is poised to become the moment’s leading storyteller... [Grann] specializes in gripping historical chronicles and crime stories…so rich in intrigue that they would strain credulity in fiction…[Grann’s] become one of our culture’s leading sources of holy s**t page-turners.” — GQ

“David Grann is one of the premier nonfiction storytellers of our time…Grann’s masterful new book…is at once an adventure on the high seas, a horror story, and a courtroom drama — a little bit Rashomon meets Lord of the Flies.” — Rolling Stone

“Not just a good but a great story, fraught with duplicity, terror and occasional heroism… the story of the Wager is, like many of its antecedents — from Homer’s “Odyssey” to “Mutiny on the Bounty” — a testament to the depths of human depravity and the heights of human endurance, and you can’t ask for better than that from a story...The Wager will keep you in its grip to its head-scratching, improbable end.” — Los Angeles Times

About the Author

DAVID GRANN is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was a finalist for the National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of THE WHITE DARKNESS and the collection THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Grann’s investigative reporting has garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

The First Lieutenant

Each man in the squadron carried, along with a sea chest, his own burdensome story. Perhaps it was of a scorned love, or a secret prison conviction, or a pregnant wife left on shore weeping. Perhaps it was a hunger for fame and fortune, or a dread of death. David Cheap, the first lieutenant of the Centurion, the squadron’s flagship, was no different. A burly Scotsman in his early forties with a protracted nose and intense eyes, he was in flight—from squabbles with his brother over their inheritance, from creditors chasing him, from debts that made it impossible for him to find a suitable bride. Onshore, Cheap seemed doomed, unable to navigate past life’s unexpected shoals. Yet as he perched on the quarterdeck of a British man-of-war, cruising the vast oceans with a cocked hat and spyglass, he brimmed with confidence—even, some would say, a touch of haughtiness. The wooden world of a ship—a world bound by the Navy’s rigid regulations and the laws of the sea and, most of all, by the hardened fellowship of men—had provided him a refuge. Suddenly he felt a crystalline order, a clarity of purpose. And Cheap’s newest posting, despite the innumerable risks that it carried, from plagues and drowning to enemy cannon fire, offered what he longed for: a chance to finally claim a wealthy prize and rise to captain his own ship, becoming a lord of the sea.

The problem was that he could not get away from the damned land. He was trapped—cursed, really—at the dockyard in Portsmouth, along the English Channel, struggling with feverish futility to get the Centurion fitted out and ready to sail. Its massive wooden hull, 144 feet long and 40 feet wide, was moored at a slip. Carpenters, caulkers, riggers, and joiners combed over its decks like rats (which were also plentiful). A cacophony of hammers and saws. The cobblestone streets past the shipyard were congested with rattling wheelbarrows and horse-drawn wagons, with porters, peddlers, pickpockets, sailors, and prostitutes. Periodically, a boatswain blew a chilling whistle, and crewmen stumbled from ale shops, parting from old or new sweethearts, hurrying to their departing ships in order to avoid their officers’ lashes.

It was January 1740, and the British Empire was racing to mobilize for war against its imperial rival Spain. And in a move that had suddenly raised Cheap’s prospects, the captain under whom he served on the Centurion, George Anson, had been plucked by the Admiralty to be a commodore and lead the squadron of five warships against the Spanish. The promotion was unexpected. As the son of an obscure country squire, Anson did not wield the level of patronage, the grease—or “interest,” as it was more politely called—that propelled many officers up the pole, along with their men. Anson, then forty-two, had joined the Navy at the age of fourteen, and served for nearly three decades without leading a major military campaign or snaring a lucrative prize.

Tall, with a long face and a high forehead, he had a remoteness about him. His blue eyes were inscrutable, and outside the company of a few trusted friends he rarely opened his mouth. One statesman, after meeting with him, noted, “Anson, as usual, said little.” Anson corresponded even more sparingly, as if he doubted the ability of words to convey what he saw or felt. “He loved reading little, and writing, or dictating his own letters less, and that seeming negligence . . . drew upon him the ill will of many,” a relative wrote. A diplomat later quipped that Anson was so unknowing about the world that he’d been “round it, but never in it.”

Nevertheless, the Admiralty had recognized in Anson what Cheap had also seen in him in the two years since he’d joined the Centurion’s crew: a formidable seaman. Anson had a mastery of the wooden world and, equally important, a mastery of himself—he remained cool and steady under duress. His relative noted, “He had high notions of sincerity and honor and practiced them without deviation.” In addition to Cheap, he had attracted a coterie of talented junior officers and protégés, all vying for his favor. One later informed Anson that he was more obliged to him than to his own father and would do anything to “act up to the good opinion you are pleased to have of me.” If Anson succeeded in his new role as commodore of the squadron, he would be in a position to anoint any captain he wanted. And Cheap, who’d initially served as Anson’s second lieutenant, was now his right-hand man.

Like Anson, Cheap had spent much of his life at sea, a bruising existence he’d at first hoped to escape. As Samuel Johnson once observed, “No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.” Cheap’s father had possessed a large estate in Fife, Scotland, and one of those titles—the second Laird of Rossie—that evoked nobility even if it did not quite confer it. His motto, emblazoned on the family’s crest, was Ditat virtus: “Virtue enriches.” He had seven children with his first wife, and, after she died, he had six more with his second, among them David.

In 1705, the year that David celebrated his eighth birthday, his father stepped out to fetch some goat’s milk and dropped dead. As was custom, it was the oldest male heir—David’s half brother James—who inherited the bulk of the estate. And so David was buffeted by forces beyond his control, in a world divided between first sons and younger sons, between haves and have-nots. Compounding his upheaval, James, now ensconced as the third Laird of Rossie, frequently neglected to pay the allowance that had been bequeathed to his half brothers and half sister: some blood was apparently thicker than others’. Driven to find work, David apprenticed to a merchant, but his debts mounted. So in 1714, the year he turned seventeen, he ran off to sea, a decision that was evidently welcomed by his family—as his guardian wrote to his older brother, “The sooner he goes off it will be better for you and me.”

After these setbacks, Cheap seemed only more consumed by his festering dreams, more determined to bend what he called an “unhappy fate.” On his own, on an ocean distant from the world he knew, he might prove himself in elemental struggles—braving typhoons, outdueling enemy ships, rescuing his companions from calamities.

But though Cheap had chased a few pirates—including the one-handed Irishman Henry Johnson, who fired his gun by resting the barrel on his stump—these earlier voyages had proved largely uneventful. He’d been sent to patrol the West Indies, generally considered the worst assignment in the Navy because of the specter of disease. The Saffron Scourge. The Bloody Flux. The Breakbone Fever. The Blue Death.

But Cheap had endured. Wasn’t there something to be said for that? Moreover, he’d earned the trust of Anson and worked his way up to first lieutenant. No doubt it helped that they shared a disdain for reckless banter, or what Cheap deemed a “vaporing manner.” A Scottish minister who later became close to Cheap noted that Anson had employed him because he was “a man of sense and knowledge.” Cheap, the once-forlorn debtor, was but one rung from his coveted captaincy. And with the war with Spain having broken out, he was about to head into full-fledged battle for the first time.

The conflict was the result of the endless jockeying among the European powers to expand their empires. They each vied to conquer or control ever larger swaths of the earth, so that they could exploit and monopolize other nations’ valuable natural resources and trade markets. In the process, they subjugated and destroyed innumerable indigenous peoples, justifying their ruthless self-interest—including the reliance on the ever-expanding Atlantic slave trade—by claiming that they were somehow spreading “civilization” to the benighted realms of the earth. Spain had long been the dominant empire in Latin America, but Great Britain, which already possessed colonies along the American eastern seaboard, was now on the ascendance—and determined to break its rival’s hold.

Then, in 1738, Robert Jenkins, a British merchant captain, was summoned to appear in Parliament, where he reportedly claimed that a Spanish officer had stormed his brig in the Caribbean and, accusing him of smuggling sugar from Spain’s colonies, cut off his left ear. Jenkins reputedly displayed his severed appendage, pickled in a jar, and pledged “my cause to my country.” The incident further ignited the passions of Parliament and pamphleteers, leading people to cry for blood—an ear for an ear—and a good deal of booty as well. The conflict became known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear.

British authorities soon devised a plan to launch an attack on a hub of Spain’s colonial wealth: Cartagena. A South American city on the Caribbean, it was where much of the silver extracted from Peruvian mines was shipped in armed convoys to Spain. The British offensive—involving a massive fleet of 186 ships, led by Admiral Edward Vernon—would be the largest amphibious assault in history. But there was also another, much smaller operation: the one assigned to Commodore Anson.

With five warships and a scouting sloop, he and some two thousand men would sail across the Atlantic and round Cape Horn, “taking, sinking, burning, or otherwise destroying” enemy ships and weakening Spanish holdings from the Pacific coast of South America to the Philippines. The British government, in concocting its scheme, wanted to avoid the impression that it was merely sponsoring piracy. Yet the heart of the plan called for an act of outright thievery: to snatch a Spanish galleon loaded with virgin silver and hundreds of thousands of silver coins. Twice a year, Spain sent such a galleon—it was not always the same ship—from Mexico to the Philippines to purchase silks and spices and other Asian commodities, which, in turn, were sold in Europe and the Americas. These exchanges provided crucial links in Spain’s global trading empire.

Cheap and the others ordered to carry out the mission were rarely privy to the agendas of those in power, but they were lured by a tantalizing prospect: a share of the treasure. The Centurion’s twenty-two-year-old chaplain, Reverend Richard Walter, who later compiled an account of the voyage, described the galleon as “the most desirable prize that was to be met with in any part of the globe.”

If Anson and his men prevailed—“if it shall please God to bless our arms,” as the Admiralty put it—they would continue circling the earth before returning home. The Admiralty had given Anson a code and a cipher to use for his written communication, and an official warned that the mission must be carried out in the “most secret, expeditious manner.” Otherwise, Anson’s squadron might be intercepted and destroyed by a large Spanish armada being assembled under the command of Don José Pizarro.

Cheap was facing his longest expedition—he might be gone for three years—and his most perilous. But he saw himself as a knight-errant of the sea in search of “the greatest prize of all the oceans.” And along the way, he might become a captain yet.

Yet if the squadron didn’t embark quickly, Cheap feared, the entire party would be annihilated by a force even more dangerous than the Spanish armada: the violent seas around Cape Horn. Only a few British sailors had successfully made this passage, where winds routinely blow at gale force, waves can climb to nearly a hundred feet, and icebergs lurk in the hollows. Seamen thought that the best chance to survive was during the austral summer, between December and February. Reverend Walter cited this “essential maxim,” explaining that during winter not only were the seas fiercer and the temperatures freezing; there were fewer hours of daylight in which one could discern the uncharted coastline. All these reasons, he argued, would make navigating around this unknown shore the “most dismaying and terrible.”

But since war had been declared, in October 1739, the Centurion and the other men-of-war in the squadron—including the Gloucester, the Pearl, and the Severn—had been marooned in England, waiting to be repaired and fitted out for the next journey. Cheap watched helplessly as the days ticked by. January 1740 came and went. Then February and March. It was nearly half a year since the war with Spain had been declared; still, the squadron was not ready to sail.

It should have been an imposing force. Men-of-war were among the most sophisticated machines yet conceived: buoyant wooden castles powered across oceans by wind and sail. Reflecting the dual nature of their creators, they were devised to be both murderous instruments and the homes in which hundreds of sailors lived together as a family. In a lethal, floating chess game, these pieces were deployed around the globe to achieve what Sir Walter Raleigh had envisioned: “Whosoever commands the seas commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world.”

Cheap knew what a cracking ship the Centurion was. Swift and stout, and weighing about a thousand tons, she had, like the other warships in Anson’s squadron, three towering masts with crisscrossing yards—wooden spars from which the sails unfurled. The Centurion could fly as many as eighteen sails at a time. Its hull gleamed with varnish, and painted around the stern, in gold relief, were Greek mythological figures, including Poseidon. On the bow rode a sixteen-foot wooden carving of a lion, painted bright red. To increase the chances of surviving a barrage of cannonballs, the hull had a double layer of planks, giving it a thickness of more than a foot in places. The ship had several decks, each stacked upon the next, and two of them had rows of cannons on both sides—their menacing black muzzles pointing out of square gunports. Augustus Keppel, a fifteen-year-old midshipman who was one of Anson’s protégés, boasted that other men-of-war had “no chance in the world” against the mighty Centurion.

Yet building, repairing, and fitting out these watercraft was a herculean endeavor even in the best of times, and in a period of war it was chaos. The royal dockyards, which were among the largest manufacturing sites in the world, were overwhelmed with ships—leaking ships, half-constructed ships, ships needing to be loaded and unloaded. Anson’s vessels were laid up on what was known as Rotten Row. As sophisticated as men-of-war were with their sail propulsion and lethal gunnery, they were largely made from simple, perishable materials: hemp, canvas, and, most of all, timber. Constructing a single large warship could require as many as four thousand trees; a hundred acres of forest might be felled.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Doubleday; First Edition (April 18, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385534264
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385534260
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.43 x 1.22 x 9.53 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Chile Travel Guides
- #2 in Maritime History & Piracy (Books)
- #13 in Murder & Mayhem True Accounts

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David Grann

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DAVID GRANN is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. He is the author of the critically acclaimed books "The Wager," "The Lost City of Z," and "Killers of the Flower Moon," which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the author of "The White Darkness" and the collection "The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession." His book "Killers of the Flower Moon" was recently adapted into a film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro. Several of his other stories, including "The Lost City of Z" and "Old Man and the Gun," have also been adapted into major motion pictures. His investigative reporting and storytelling have garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award and an Edgar Allan Poe Award.

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Customers find the book well-researched, well-written, and easy to use. They also describe the plot as exciting, with survival and hope. Readers describe the characters as real life individuals with depth and intelligence. They find the literary merit worthwhile and fascinating.

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Customers find the book worth reading, an excellent tale, and say it feels like fiction.

"...It’s a well written and compelling story.The author, David Grann, also wrote “Killers of the Flower Moon”...." Read more

"...It is fascinating to read about how they discovered new food sources and what they chose to learn and ignore from natives whose cultures had thrived..." Read more

"...three in Chile with tales of mutiny.. this is a fascinating tell-all of the true story behind what really happened onboard the HMS Wager...." Read more

"...is my favorite kind of nonfiction book: true history told as a fascinating story, and not too long!..." Read more

392 customers mention "Plot"364 positive28 negative

Customers find the plot exciting, brilliant, and shape the voyage with metaphoric summaries. They also enjoy the history of the natives and modern geography facts to illustrate the reality of the story. Readers say the book draws them in and keeps them engaged.

"...The story flows much like a novel. I read the book quickly, eager to find out what would happen next...." Read more

"...descriptive section title structures the book and shapes the voyage with metaphoric summaries: The Wooden World, Into the Storm, Castaways,..." Read more

"Wow this was such an incredible, thrilling story—a definite must read...." Read more

"This is my favorite kind of nonfiction book: true history told as a fascinating story, and not too long!..." Read more

284 customers mention "Writing quality"277 positive7 negative

Customers find the book very well written, a page-turner, and a work of narrative nonfiction. They also appreciate the creative, descriptive section titles that structure the book and shape the voyage with metaphors. Readers say the book provides an excellent look at life on a 18th Century sailing ship and is easy to use.

"...It’s a well written and compelling story.The author, David Grann, also wrote “Killers of the Flower Moon”...." Read more

"...Each creative, descriptive section title structures the book and shapes the voyage with metaphoric summaries: The Wooden World, Into the Storm,..." Read more

"...Well-written and well-researched, really a great book." Read more

"...And how all order fell apart as the men became desperate. Well written. Informative and a good read." Read more

157 customers mention "Research quality"149 positive8 negative

Customers find the book brilliantly researched, comprehensive, and entertaining. They also appreciate the thoughtful insights into politics, naval affairs, and empire building.

"...It is incredible how learned they were...." Read more

"...Well-written and well-researched, really a great book." Read more

"...Well written. Informative and a good read." Read more

"...What constitutes a "BigDog" book? It has to be the right combination of Information, Amusement and Never Being Able to Put it Down...." Read more

32 customers mention "Pacing"23 positive9 negative

Customers find the pacing of the book fast and enjoyable. They also say the book flows well.

"...This is a tale of supermen made by extreme circumstances. It moves quickly and the author paints the characters so you feel like you know them...." Read more

"...Quick, page turner of a book." Read more

"The book starts a bit slow. There is a lot to understand and know before the voyage can even begin...." Read more

"Would order from seller again. Well packaged, quick delivery." Read more

32 customers mention "Story and characters"24 positive8 negative

Customers find the story and characters in the book real, with depth and intelligence. They also appreciate the author's ability as a great storyteller and find it interesting to hear each person's different version of the events.

"...This is a wonderfully-written book and Grann is a masterful story teller." Read more

"...It moves quickly and the author paints the characters so you feel like you know them...." Read more

"Started off slow but overall a great read. Slow descriptions of characters at the beginning that didn't do much for the story in my opinion...." Read more

"...Graham’s descriptions and characterizations are compelling. I recommend “The Wager” wholeheartedly." Read more

20 customers mention "Character traits"20 positive0 negative

Customers find the character traits in the book amazing, courageous, and respectful. They also say the book is a fascinating story of human survival, with historical narratives and studies in leadership. Readers also mention that the officers in the story feel human.

"...It about human heroics, adventure, leadership, perseverance, survival and hope. It also about the shadowy dark-side of humanity." Read more

"...both books as both fantastic historical narratives and studies in leadership." Read more

"It’s just too ponderous. It’s certainly shows people of intrepid spirit and the strengths and frailties of humanity, but goes on and on." Read more

"...The book is a captivation exploration of the human psyche certainly, but I don't want to sound pretentious for it can be read as a thrilling true-..." Read more

20 customers mention "Content"0 positive20 negative

Customers find the content boring, ponderous, and repetitive. They also say the book is nonstop misery that they cannot put down.

"...the book I’d just say that it seems to build and build only to a rather dull and abrupt conclusion which, I suppose, is more from the actual events..." Read more

"Not quite as engaging or suspenseful as In the Heart of the Sea by Nathanial Philbrick and, as a work of historical non-fiction, I would have..." Read more

"...I enjoyed reading it, although it was rather depressing...." Read more

"It’s just too ponderous. It’s certainly shows people of intrepid spirit and the strengths and frailties of humanity, but goes on and on." Read more

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Andrew Desmond

Mutiny on the Wager?

Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2024

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“The Wager” is a wonderful piece of narrative history. It tells the story of the somewhat curiously named HMS Wager and its part in the even more obscure War of Jenkin’s Ear in the mid 18th century. It’s a well written and compelling story.

The author, David Grann, also wrote “Killers of the Flower Moon”. The big difference between the two books is “The Wager” is so much easier to read. The story flows much like a novel. I read the book quickly, eager to find out what would happen next.

In essence, a small armada of vessels left Portsmouth in 1740 bound for the west coast of the Americas seeking confrontation with Spanish galleons and their prospective booty. However, in the process of rounding Cape Horn, HMS Wager was wrecked on a small Chilean island known today as Wager Island. Grann’s book tells the story of how the crew managed to return to England. Some did and some failed. Those who succeeded had differing interpretations of events.

The entire story is extraordinary. It’s puzzling to me why this story is not better known. To greater or lesser degrees, everyone knows the story of the Bounty and its famous mutiny. No one seems to know of the Wager. David Grann has done some excellent work bringing this story to a wider audience.

Recommended.

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LindaL

Thrilling account of a real voyage that reads like a novel

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2023

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The Wager was an English ship that set sail from England in 1740 during an imperial war with Spain. It was the mid-1700s, and navigational tools were primitive. Diseases among the seafarers spread rapidly, and I was incredulous, realizing how little they knew about curbing nutritional deficiencies such as scurvy. It seems absurd that in addition to not knowing about the necessity for vitamin C, insufficient levels of niacin were causing psychosis and night blindness resulting from lack of Vitamin A. After shipwrecking on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia, the story is as much about human nature as it is about surviving on an island and attaining its mission against the Spanish. It is fascinating to read about how they discovered new food sources and what they chose to learn and ignore from natives whose cultures had thrived in the areas where the Englishmen became castaways. If they were going to continue to survive and continue their naval mission, they had to build new boats without the technology available in their homeland, and there were myriad disagreements about how to proceed and also about which path to follow when it was time to embark on the dangerous waters again. Disharmony leads some groups to set sail in opposite directions eventually. When the survivors arrived back in England, the accounts of what happened were not in sync.

The characters who are historical figures demonstrate the gamut of human emotions and an evolution of social mores. Without describing each character, I’ll point out that we meet a dominating captain with poor leadership traits. And, of course, we meet argumentative underlings who have smug independence. Then, we see ferocious workers and others with inherent leadership skills and charisma. All of the men are familiar with British naval order and ranking conventions. Yet, more hierarchies develop as the men struggle to survive and create social order. As the subtitle suggests, the fight for survival leads to becoming mutinous and murderous. Grann describes the basic human drives and terrors with admirable writing skills.

Writing, in the eighteenth century, was an honorable thing to do. The men onboard the Wager kept written logs—some were required, and others were kept to document some of the mutinous decisions. David Grann had copious notes and records to use when piecing this story together. Rousseau and Voltaire cited the Wager’s expedition reports, as did Charles Darwin and Herman Melville. The seafaring journalists quote the Bible, poets, and famous writers. It is incredible how learned they were. Grann uses his well-honed investigative and research skills to weave a beautiful story of what reportedly happened and the eloquent analysis by those who experienced it. Grann’s ability to combine first-person accounts of the expedition with his summation of the events provides fabulous text about the seafarers and their exploits. Each creative, descriptive section title structures the book and shapes the voyage with metaphoric summaries: The Wooden World, Into the Storm, Castaways, Deliverance, and Judgment are the main sections, and Gran used these to develop the book so that it reads like a novel and keeps the reader riveted. I highly recommend this narrative to everyone, even those who prefer fiction to nonfiction.

109 people found this helpful

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Tammy

Excellent writer!

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2024

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Wow this was such an incredible, thrilling story—a definite must read. Set in the 1740’s, it’s a true story based around the HMS Wager involving a court martial where two groups of shipwrecked British sailors accuse each other of mutiny + murder.

David Grann pulled out all the stops in this harrowing tale of the British ship Wager that embarked from England on a secret mission against Spain; to capture a Spanish galleon for it’s treasure aboard. It begins in Britain—with no sailors available to help man the ship they resorted to unfathomable acts.. (unbelievably) of paying gangs to snatch up unsuspecting men and forcing sick + (aging) invalid soldiers aboard as sailors on the ship.

David Grann writes of the shipwrecked sailors that survived.. only to fight for survival and dominance on what is now called “Wager Island” (some resorting to abominable acts.) Two years later (1742) a patched-up boat of thirty men landed ashore in Brazil with tales of heroism—six months later another three in Chile with tales of mutiny.. this is a fascinating tell-all of the true story behind what really happened onboard the HMS Wager.

I found this all hard to believe.. it’s like a cross between Robinson Crusoe and Lord of the Flies.. but according to David Grann’s years researching this.. it did happen. Highly recommend. 5 stars — Pub. 4/18/23

11 people found this helpful

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Mary Q.

Fascinating story from British history

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2024

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This is my favorite kind of nonfiction book: true history told as a fascinating story, and not too long!
Well-written and well-researched, really a great book.

4 people found this helpful

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Jacque Rupp

enjoyable read

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2024

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Great account of naval history on the seas in the early 1700’s. And how all order fell apart as the men became desperate. Well written. Informative and a good read.

2 people found this helpful

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Coury Rust

Great story and well written

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2024

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I love the story of the wager. This book I’ve read for part of my book club I must say. The first hundred or so pages of the story was slow with all the backstory, but the book picked up substantially through the second half and I couldn’t put it down.

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Ricardo Carvalho de Barros

Diversão pura

Reviewed in Brazil on May 25, 2024

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Ótimo livro, daqueles que você não consegue desgrudar.

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Peter Neville

aan interesting eay read.

Reviewed in Canada on April 4, 2024

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I read the whole book in three days, it was so interesting and well written I could mnoy put it down

Angela

Muy buen libro

Reviewed in Mexico on February 26, 2024

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Lo compre para mi papá de navidad. Le encanto el libro, es muy buen regalo. Y viene todo bien en relación a las páginas y sin daños.

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SD

Brilliant!

Reviewed in India on June 29, 2024

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David Grann keeps you on your toes with this beautifully written book. A true story, even though it is non-fiction, it is gripping and speaks volumes about human grit and resilience. Must read!

phydaux

Awesome

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 7, 2024

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Incredibly well researched, gives a very accurate often first hand account of life aboard the Wager, whilst still being a riveting narrative. Highly recommended.

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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder Hardcover – April 18, 2023

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