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1 von 1 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
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The Essex Tragedy, 11. Mai 2000
This Penguin Classics edition collects first-person accounts of the Essex shipwreck by her survivors and the rescuers. The Essex, you may know, was the famous whale-ship that was sunk by a whale, and provided an inspiration for Herman Melville's classic novel "Moby-Dick."It includes the Paddack letter, the Macy letter, Owen Chase's Narrative, Herman Melville's annotations of Chase's narrative, Thomas Nickerson's narrative, Nickerson's letter to Leon Lewis; excerpts from Ridgely's letterbook, Charles Wilkes's autobiography, and Tyerman and Bennet's Journal; Thomas Chappel's narrative, and an excerpt from the journal of the ship Surry. The Macy letter and the Nickerson writings are fairly new and so were not published in Thomas Heffernan's "Stove by a Whale," so this collection supersedes Heffernan as the best collection of primary sources relating to the Essex. To give you an idea of how up to date this collection is, consider the letter of Jethro Macy. It was only brought to the attention of researchers in December 1999, and it is here published for the first time. It contributes a few new details to the story. Although Nickerson gets top billing, Owen Chase's famous narrative still remains the best source for the shipwreck and the open boat voyage. Nickerson admits that his recounting of that part of the story is at least partially derived from Chase. What Nickerson adds is usually of personal and emotional nature, and it is through Nickerson that you really get a look at the different personalities of the crew. But where Nickerson is most valuable is in his description of the Essex's voyage before their fatal run-in with the whale. While Chase spends only 3 or 4 pages describing that part of the voyage, Nickerson writes around 55 pages about it, in a very detailed account. So if you are interested in the Essex, whaling, or Herman Melville; or would just like to read a good adventure story, get this book.
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