The Wager

Gripping. Hard to put down. Although nonfiction, it reads like a novel. A story about humanity.

"The Wager" is a fascinating book about a shipwreck and about some of the less inspiring traits of human nature as the crew does not take a "one for all and all for one" attitude as they struggle to overcome their fate. In some ways this is a real-life "Lord of the Flies," only with adults instead of boys. Grann brings the tale to life with rich details from his research of the shipwreck itself, the world at the time, and some of the individuals involved, including John Byron, the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, who was a midshipman.

David Grann's incredible book brings life to the men who served aboard England's fleet in the 18th century and reads like a contemporary thriller.

A squadron of ships complete with armed marines are tasked with seizing and returning to England a Spanish shipment of gold that departs South America twice yearly.

But navigation in the 1740's was still dead reckoning & luck. All the ships including The Wager get separated rounding the tip of South America and The Wager is wrecked.

What happens next results on one of the most famous naval trials in history.

Grann draws on the numerous… show more.

I write, read, and study nautical history. Having read the historical account by Bulkeley and Cummins (Gunner and Carpenter of Wager) titled A Voyage to the South Seas in His Majesty's Ship The Wager in the Years 1740-1741, I was pleased to read David Grann's The Wager, a highly visible, well-promoted popular history of that same mutiny, shipwreck, and survival story. It is said, 'A rising tide raises all ships,' so I hope Grann's success helps all of us who write maritime history and historical nautical fiction stay afloat and not run aground for lack of awareness.

Fascinating. It was well-researched. What those men went through is a fantastic tale.

I often fail to see the close connection between the culture at sea in centuries past and how some of that has persisted to this day, both at sea and in many aspects of our culture, especially science.

This book hit me squarely between the eyes with that. I was deliciously captured within the pages of the story both for some of the unsettling, even shocking descriptions of hardships back in that day (and would I have been able to survive were I in that circumstance, even as a woman) and the cautionary tale it brings about loyalty, ethics, courage,… show more.

David Grann’s captivating tale of an 18th-century shipwreck placed me squarely on the deck of the ship, the Wager, as it lunged and hurled through battering waves off the coast of Patagonia, then ran aground. Then things got really interesting. The Wager was not just fun as hell; it was also instructive.

It showed me how to forebode and forewarn without giving away too much plot and how to keep the reader engaged through mazes of meticulously gathered research. And it did it all aboard a lunging, listing vessel, then through 18 months among castaways on a rocky outpost, as… show more.

I love David Grann’s book because it has such chilling depictions of scurvy and other maladies at sea that it had me running to my nearest source of vitamin C.

Grann's rich storytelling presents the challenges of seafaring in the eighteenth century—storms, shipwrecks, hunger, and disease—and proves that the most effective learning should be fun. By the time readers finish The Wager, they will know much about the inner workings of the early British Empire without even realizing it. 

For me, this irresistible read is more than an incredible true story: It’s an exploration of how to choose between different versions of historical events.

The crew of the Wager became shipwrecked off the Patagonian coast after a disastrous attempt to round Cape Horn in 1741. The survivors quarreled. Did naval hierarchy still apply? Early in 1742, a starving group of survivors arrived by boat at a Brazilian settlement. Other groups would make their separate ways to safety.

I think the power of Grann’s writing lies not only in his ability to put us on that patched-together ship, and that… show more.