“THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION* ‘The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail… one of the finest nonfiction books I\u2019ve ever read’ Guardian \u2018The greatest sea story ever told\u2019 Spectator ‘I cannot think of anyone who would not love this book . . . It is an extraordinary true story, beautifully written’ Richard Osman \u2018A cracking yarn\u2026 Grann\u2019s taste for desperate predicaments finds its fullest expression here\u2019 Observer From the international bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty\u2019s ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes \u2013 they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine w<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION* ‘The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail… one of the finest nonfiction books I\u2019ve ever read’ Guardian \u2018The greatest sea story ever told\u2019 Spectator ‘I cannot think of anyone who would not love this book . . […]\n","protected":false},"featured_media":72231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[712],"product_tag":[],"class_list":["post-72232","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-xenoglossa-vivlia","pa_brand-simon-schuster","pa_syngrafeas-david-grann","first","pre_order","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n