In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

A New York Times best seller and National Book Award winner, Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, recounts the little known story that inspired Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In 1819, the Nantucket Whaleship Essex was making a routine hunt for whales in the South Pacific when an angry sperm whale rammed and sunk the ship. With no means of communication in the middle of a vast sea, the survivors were left adrift in lifeboats for more than 90 days with many succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately cannibalism. Drawing upon first person accounts, including that of the ship’s cabin boy Philbrick provides a penetrating and captivating account of the maritime disaster while also providing a larger context study of the whaling industry and its importance as an early 19th century maritime industry.