Do you now the story of the Essex? It is a ship that went down to the sea in the 19th century, and the first mate survived to chronicle the story (The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex). There are a lot of reasons that this story is interesting and important. For me, there is a special level of interest because I was involved in the excavation of the shipyard where the Essex was built.

My friend Romeo Vitelli is writing a multi-part blog post on the Essex Disaster, which begins thusly:

When the whaleship Essex left Nantucket on August 12, 1819, the twenty-one men on board had no idea that they would soon become part of one of the most harrowing survival tales of the 19th century. Not to mention inspiring a great literary classic.

Though sailing under a new captain, George Pollard, the Essex was a reliable three-master that successfully completed decades of whaling voyages. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Nantucket was the centre of the world’s whaling industry and whaling products were the mainstay of the island’s economy. Many of the Essex’s crewmembers belonged to old whaling families that had been hunting whales for generations. …

This is going to be interesting. Go check it out!

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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