1821: Whaleship 'Essex'

Owen Chase's account of how he survived being shipwrecked in 1821 after a whale's apparent 'revenge attack'. His account is full of real life horror, made all the more terrible by the matter-of-fact style of its telling.

The whale's attacks are breathtakingly vivid. His descriptions of reluctant cannibalism are vivid too: he describes the drying strips of human flesh as they hang upon the ship and he describes the macabre drawing of lots as it falls upon Owen Coffin (the captain's nephew) to be shot and eaten.

Chase steers clear of sentimentality and melodrama. He tells it as it is. No one can fail to be moved by what he went through or impressed by his strength. His story inspired the novel and film 'In The Heart of The Sea'. It also inspired Melville to write 'Moby Dick': Melville was handed the manuscript of Chase's writing by Chase's son twenty years after its publication.