In the Heart of the Sea

In 1819, the Nantucket whaleship Essex sails for the Pacific under Captain George Pollard Jr., with Owen Chase as first mate and fourteen-year-old Thomas Nickerson among the crew. On 20 November 1820, far west of South America, a sperm whale repeatedly strikes and sinks the ship. The twenty men escape in three open whaleboats with limited food and water, but their decision to avoid nearby islands they fear may be dangerous commits them to an immense voyage towards the coast of South America.

For more than ninety days, exposure, dehydration, starvation and failing leadership reduce the crews until the survivors resort to cannibalism. Philbrick combines Chase’s published narrative with Nickerson’s rediscovered account and the history of Nantucket’s whaling economy to explain both the disaster and its aftermath. He also traces the event’s influence on Herman Melville, showing how the Essex became the factual catastrophe behind Moby-Dick while remaining a disturbing study of hierarchy, survival and human judgement.