Product Description

'It is incredible! These very young men I placed every confidence in, yet these great Villains… got possession of the Arms and took the Bounty from me… I have been run down by my own dogs.'
The bestselling author of The Endurance reveals the startling truth behind the legend of the MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY - the most famous sea story of all time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #368325 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-06
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Few episodes in the history of British sea-faring are as gripping and sensational as The Bounty--an account of a mutiny of 1789. While the French were having a revolution in Paris, in the South Pacific a very English coup took place when Master's mate Fletcher Christian deposed Captain Bligh, the ruler of his ship, and set off with his fellow mutineers for a new life in the paradise of Tahiti. The tale has all the ingredients of an adventure--Robinson Crusoe, Captain Cook, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lord of the Flies all rolled into one. And, as Caroline Alexander points out, myth and legend have often got in the way of the real truth of why the mutiny took place. She sets out to find out what really happened, and does so by not only reconstructing the fateful voyage of the ship, but also by focusing in on all the principal and minor characters in the drama.

The trouble with this book is that there seems to be too many different tales to tell and the author struggles to keep up with her narrative. Like a lost ship we set sail in one direction only to back-track and recover the same course over again. The promised treasure--why Christian really did it--is never found. Readers wanting a clearer and simpler chart might be better advised to read Captain Bligh's own famous account, and Edward Christian's defence of his brother The Bounty Mutiny and then follow-up with Greg Dening's book, Mr Bligh's Bad Language. --Miles Taylor

Independent
'...atmospheric and perceptive...'

Daily Mail
'painstaking and absorbing'

Customer Reviews

Blighs Bounty
The bestselling author of The Endurance reveals the startling truth behind the legend of the Mutiny on the Bounty, the most famous sea story of all time. More than two centuries have passed since Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lt. Bligh on a small armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend. Caroline Alexander focusses on the court martial of the ten mutineers captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in Portsmouth. Each figure emerges as a richly drawn character caught up in a drama that may well end on the gallows. With enormous scholarship and exquisitely drawn characters, the whole book is a hard to put down read. I was particularly enthralled in the account of Bligh's superb seamanship when he sails his small band of survivors on the long perilous journey to the East Indies. Written with great detail you can literally step into the shoes of the central characters of this true descriptive account of a classic seafaring adventure.

The Bounty
This is a tale of exploration, adventure and mutiny on board the navy cutter Bounty, commanded by Lieutenant Bligh (for he was only nominally a captain) and under orders to sail to Tahiti and thence to transport indigenous breadfruit plants from that south Pacific island 'paradise' to the plantations of the West Indies via the channel between New Holland (Australia) and New Guinea (Papua New Guinea) which they were to explore and chart for the Admiralty as the true objective.

But the captain is unceremoniously relieved of his command and cast adrift in the ship's launch with a handful of loyalists to a certain death on the high seas (or so the mutineers believed) when things turn nasty not far from Tahiti. But, the captain and his band of fellows makes his way to a Dutch trading post-cum-settlement in Timor where they are received honourably and given safe passage to Batavia, Java, the principal trading station in the Dutch East Indies. After the mutiny one faction on board the Bounty is returned to Tahiti where they settle. The remainder, including Fletcher Christian, eventually wash up in Pitcairn where the survivors were found decades later (a story in itself).

The first seeds of rebellion were sown nine months from port, and six months previously, in Adventure Bay, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) when Bligh ticked off his carpenter - not the first of his officers to be lashed by his tongue during the voyage - William Purcell during a "wooding" expedition on shore. Apparently his billets of timber were "too long" and he responded "insolently" to Bligh's criticisms (the captain should have left well alone if you ask me) ... But Bligh is generally bad tempered and the mutiny is eventually precipitated one night after Bligh harangues his officers about the theft of coconuts and calls them "dogs", "scoundrels" and "villains".

Alexander takes us effortlessly from the south seas, via provincial England and its intrigues and intricate web of family connections which binds many of the protagonists in this saga, to the court-martial aboard the HMS Duke in Portsmouth Harbour where the mutineers apprehended at Tahiti are tried for their lives. There follows probably one of the best and most lucid courtroom dramas that has appeared anywhere in print. Alexander writes beautifully and substantiates her claims and hypotheses quoting from primary sources such as the captain's log and various other contemporary memoirs and diaries written by the mutineers, their families and other contemporaries with a connection to the story.

This book is so much more than just the Bounty and the mutiny; it's an evocative look at the ordinary life of a seafarer of the day, and a history of that era of exploration and adventure when Britain's navy was emerging to rule the waves and establish the first outposts of what would become a great empire.

Dead in the water
Expecting a thrilling adventure of mutiny and drama on the high seas? Then don't waste your time on this.
Presumably historically accurate in every sense, but overdosed on unrelated historical minutia, this is definitley not a story book. It is a dry, factual account of events, with no feeling, no hint of the personal struggles of the subjects, and no incentive to keep reading its 500 odd pages, made worse by the incoherent and at times unfathomable order of events.
The pretentious and incessant use of old English seriously detracts from the content, as phrases have to be frequently re-read to confirm their meaning.
And all this with ridiculously small print, which, unbelievably, gets even smaller towards the end!
You feel that you should be taking an exam at the end of this, rather than enjoying what should have been a thrilling true-life drama.