? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder is a nonfiction narrative fresh off the press written by David Grann, an American journalist and staff writer for The New Yorker. The book, which earned Grann a nomination for the prestigious Baillie Gifford Prize, is a gripping tale of survival, betrayal and crime on the high seas. The HMS Wager departed from England on a secret mission heading to Spain in 1740 amid the Imperial Wars, also known as Colonial Wars that took place between the 17th and the 18th centuries in North America. In proper Pirates of the Caribbean fashion, the ship was intended to find a “Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as ‘the prize of all the oceans’” but instead was wrecked and docked on a “desolate island off the coast of Patagonia” in 1742. A group of 30 crewmen miraculously survived a 100-day journey using a jerry-built craft to arrive at the coast of Brazil. Their arrival was met with adulation but things took a dramatic turn when six months later, another severely damaged ship reached the shores of Chile carrying three castaways from the The Wager that have a contrasting narrative. What comes next is mutinies, court martials, murders, evil senior officers — and every feature of a naval adventure that would take readers on a trip across time and space.

Tags: