Book description
The bestselling author of The Endurance reveals the startling truth
behind the legend of the Mutiny on the Bounty - the most famous sea
story of all time.
More than two centuries have passed since Fletcher Christian mutinied
against Lt. Bligh on a small armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why
the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain
vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend.
Caroline Alexander focusses on the court martial of the ten mutineers
captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in Portsmouth. Each figure
emerges as a richly drawn character caught up in a drama that may well
end on the gallows. With enormous scholarship and exquisitely drawn
characters, The Bounty is a tour de force.
Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content
that appeared in the original print version. 'With this and her
previous book, The Endurance, she has made the wondrous genre of
open-boat-voyage narratives still more wondrous…This sounds like Conrad
writing. A sea mist hangs over this age-old tale. Alexander dispels it,
to the reader's fascination. But when the facts are told and the fates
of the cast duly chronicled, the sea mist settles in again, as
impenetrable and yet more interesting than it has ever been.' New York
Times Book Review
'Alexander…handles the story with great thoroughness and calm. She
appears to have unearthed and examined every possible shred of evidence,
and it is difficult to imagine that this will not long remain the
definitive account…what Alexander does here superbly, what is new to
this account, and what makes this simple story worth examining in such
detail, is her revelation of how the myth grew from unsubstantiated
scraps, who founded and nourished it, and why.' Peter Nichols, Sunday Times
'This book should find an enduring place as the definitive rendering,
and its appearance should elevate Caroline Alexander to the ranks of the
finest historians of teh most romantic, and most romanticised, period in
British Imperial history.' Simon Winchester, Daily Telegraph
'Alexander profiles history's most famous mutiny in the same stylish
manner she brought to Shackleton's Antarctic expedition in The
Endurance…A great sea story, surpassed perhaps only by the Odyssey,
handled with dexterity to capture characters and circumstances with
faithfulness to the record and a steady feeling of anticipation for
history in the making.' Kirkus Reviews Caroline Alexander was born in
Florida, of British parents, and has lived in Europe, Africa and the
Caribbean. She studied Philosophy and Theology at Oxford as a Rhodes
scholar and has a doctorate in Classics from Columbia University. She is
the author of the bestselling The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary
Antarctic Expedition which has been translated into thirteen languages.
She writes frequently for The New Yorker and The National Geographic,
and she is the author of four other books, including Mr Chippy's Last
Expedition, the journal of the Endurance's ship's cat.
