Grann, who recently spoke by video surrounded by his voluminous notes and a model of The Wager, dives deep into the maritime world of that era. Related: Sign up for our free newsletter about books, authors, reading and moreĪs David Grann recounts in his gripping new book, “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder,” neither group expected to see the other alive – and their competing stories created a new round of complications. Then, astonishingly, another three men turned up alive, including the captain and a young man whose grandson, the poet Lord Byron, would write about these exploits in “Don Juan.” It got worse from there: scurvy, typhoons, a shipwreck, murder and cannibalism and mutiny.Įventually, 81 men set out from where the crew had been stranded on a makeshift ship for a 3,000-mile journey that killed nearly two-thirds of them their survival was hailed as a miracle. Things went awry before they even left as the ships had trouble finding willing and able men. In 1740, a warship called The Wager left England as part of a fleet looking to make war with Spain in South America and capture a galleon holding millions in treasure.
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