In the original dustsheet. Navy cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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This is a good read about a fascinating event and seems very well researched. I found this book after watching a youtube lecture by an American lawyer who collected historical Bligh documents and he recommended this book as one of the best modern books on the Bounty mutiny. It seems a very full up to date take on the story and paints a very different picture of Bligh than most of us were fed by Hollywood. Unfortunately to me, the book is very disjointed with long asides into detail which though relevant causes the thread of the story to get a bit lost at times. I would have given it 5 stars but for this minutiae as it tried my patience at times. Stick with it though and you will be rewarded.

Review: This is a super book. A methodical analysis of the facts told in a very readable style. It evokes life at sea in the British Navy in the late 1700’s with admirable clarity. The hardships, the living conditions, the spirit of adventure and the sheer effort required to navigate and chart, remote lands in search of new discoveries and peoples. It evokes the artistry and skills required both to build and maintain such a ship as ‘the Bounty’, the routines of daily life aboard, surviving the vagaries of the weather, keeping the ship clean and disease free, but primarily it tells the iconic tale of ‘The Mutiny on the Bounty’ featuring the infamous Captain Bligh and First Mate Fletcher Christian occurring as it did at around the time of the rise of the Abolitionist Movement and the French Revolution. A very atmospheric tale, a deeply interesting tale. Caroline Alexander suggests, quoting a whole host of documentary evidence, that history has been somewhat unkind to Captain Bligh, something of a traditionalist in what were changing times

Set at a time when typically a large section of crews were still pressed men (ie. kidnapped and pressed into service) and children could be transported to the penal Colony in Australia for stealing a loaf of bread. Fletcher Christian apparently attended school with William Wordsworth and Captain (actually First Lieutenant) Bligh had sailed previously with Captain Cook and modelled himself on the famous Captain. Bligh was on a mission to secure ‘Bread Fruit plants’ to be used to feed the slaves in the West Indies when the mutiny happened, and he was sponsored by Sir Joseph Banks the founder of Kew Gardens, and a lifelong friend and supporter. The book paints a tantalising picture of Tahiti and the surrounding islands in the early days following its discovery by Captain Cook when opposition to the white outsiders was stirring and landing at an island could find friendly natives or hostile natives and when friendly natives could turn very quickly into hostile natives. A meeting of very different cultures in an idyllic setting of white sands and palm trees where the women were very free, and friendly with their favours. The eventful actions that began on the morning of 28th April 1789 are surely etched in the memories of legions of English schoolboys, but what was the real story ? Was it the one we all have come to know of the cruel Captain Bligh and the rather heroic Mr Christian who rose up with fellow crew members to seize the Bounty, free the crew and set Captain Bligh adrift in an open boat ? Or was it somewhat different ? Read the book and find out you will not regret it.

Caroline Alexander (the author) was born in Florida, of British parents and has lived in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. She studied philosophy and theology at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and has a doctorate in classics from Columbia University. She is the author of the best-selling The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition which has been translated into thirteen languages. She writes frequently for The New Yorker and National Geographic, and she is the author of four other books, including Mrs Chippy’s Last Expedition, the journal of the Endurance’s ship’s cat.