Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors

Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039334603X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
"This incredible true story reads like the wildest fiction."—Booklist In the summer of 1783 the grandees of the East India Company were horrified to learn that one of their finest ships, the 741-ton Grosvenor, had been lost on the wild and unexplored coast of southeast Africa. Astonishingly, most of those on board reached the shore safely—91 members of the crew and 34 wealthy, high-born passengers, including women and children. They were hundreds of miles from the nearest European outpost—and they were not alone. "They surveyed one another with mutual incomprehension: on the one hand the dishevelled castaways; on the other, black warriors with high conical hairstyles, daubed with red mud..." Drawing upon unpublished material and new research, Stephen Taylor pieces together the strands of this compelling saga, sifting the myths from a reality that is no less gripping. Full of unexpected twists, Caliban's Shore takes the reader to the heart of what is now South Africa, to analyze the misunderstandings that led to tragedy, to tell the story of those who returned, and to unravel the mystery of those who stayed.

Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors

Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393327078
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Recounts the 1782 shipwreck of one of the East India Company's most prestigious ships, describing how ninety-one crew members and thirty-four wealthy passengers found themselves stranded on the unexplored coast of southeast Africa.

Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors

Caliban's Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039334603X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This incredible true story reads like the wildest fiction."—Booklist In the summer of 1783 the grandees of the East India Company were horrified to learn that one of their finest ships, the 741-ton Grosvenor, had been lost on the wild and unexplored coast of southeast Africa. Astonishingly, most of those on board reached the shore safely—91 members of the crew and 34 wealthy, high-born passengers, including women and children. They were hundreds of miles from the nearest European outpost—and they were not alone. "They surveyed one another with mutual incomprehension: on the one hand the dishevelled castaways; on the other, black warriors with high conical hairstyles, daubed with red mud..." Drawing upon unpublished material and new research, Stephen Taylor pieces together the strands of this compelling saga, sifting the myths from a reality that is no less gripping. Full of unexpected twists, Caliban's Shore takes the reader to the heart of what is now South Africa, to analyze the misunderstandings that led to tragedy, to tell the story of those who returned, and to unravel the mystery of those who stayed.

The Caliban Shore

The Caliban Shore PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571295673
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The 'Grosvenor' was one of the finest East Indiamen of her day, a grand three-masted square-rigger of 741 tons bristling with 26 cannon. When she ran aground on the treacherous coast of south-east Africa, an astonishing number of her crew and passengers, including women and children, reached the shore safely. But the castaways were hundreds of miles from the nearest European outpost - and utterly ignorant of their surroundings and the people among whom they found themselves. Stephen Taylor pieces together this extraordinary saga with tremendous narrative flair. Drawing upon much new research, he sifts the myths that became attached to the 'Grosvenor' from a reality that is no less gripping. Taking the reader to the heart of what is now the Wild Coast of Pondoland, The Caliban Shore reveals the misunderstandings that led to tragedy, tells the story of those who escaped and unravels the mystery of those who stayed.

Sons of the Waves

Sons of the Waves PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252617
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
A brilliant telling of the history of the common seaman in the age of sail, and his role in Britain’s trade, exploration, and warfare British maritime history in the age of sail is full of the deeds of officers like Nelson but has given little voice to plain, "illiterate" seamen. Now Stephen Taylor draws on published and unpublished memoirs, letters, and naval records, including court-martials and petitions, to present these men in their own words. In this exhilarating account, ordinary seamen are far from the hapless sufferers of the press gangs. Proud and spirited, learned in their own fashion, with robust opinions and the courage to challenge overweening authority, they stand out from their less adventurous compatriots. Taylor demonstrates how the sailor was the engine of British prosperity and expansion up to the Industrial Revolution. From exploring the South Seas with Cook to establishing the East India Company as a global corporation, from the sea battles that made Britain a superpower to the crisis of the 1797 mutinies, these "sons of the waves" held the nation’s destiny in their calloused hands.

The Tempest

The Tempest PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: Paw Prints
ISBN: 9781442042247
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Critical and historical notes accompany Shakespeare's play about a shipwrecked duke who learns to command the spirits.

Out of the Depths

Out of the Depths PDF Author: Alan G. Jamieson
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789146208
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
A highly illustrated voyage through shipwrecks ancient and contemporary. Out of the Depths explores all aspects of shipwrecks across four thousand years, examining their historical context and significance, showing how shipwrecks can be time capsules, and shedding new light on long-departed societies and civilizations. Alan G. Jamieson not only informs readers of the technological developments over the last sixty years that have made the true appreciation of shipwrecks possible, but he also covers shipwrecks in culture and maritime archaeology, their appeal to treasure hunters, and their environmental impacts. Although shipwrecks have become less common in recent decades, their implications have become more wide-ranging: since the 1960s, foundering supertankers have caused massive environmental disasters, and in 2021, the blocking of the Suez Canal by the giant container ship Ever Given had a serious effect on global trade.

Travels into Print

Travels into Print PDF Author: Innes M. Keighren
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022623357X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, books of travel and exploration were much more than simply the printed experiences of intrepid authors. They were works of both artistry and industry—products of the complex, and often contested, relationships between authors and editors, publishers and printers. These books captivated the reading public and played a vital role in creating new geographical truths. In an age of global wonder and of expanding empires, there was no publisher more renowned for its travel books than the House of John Murray. Drawing on detailed examination of the John Murray Archive of manuscripts, images, and the firm’s correspondence with its many authors—a list that included such illustrious explorers and scientists as Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, and literary giants like Jane Austen, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott—Travels into Print considers how journeys of exploration became published accounts and how travelers sought to demonstrate the faithfulness of their written testimony and to secure their personal credibility. This fascinating study in historical geography and book history takes modern readers on a journey into the nature of exploration, the production of authority in published travel narratives, and the creation of geographical authorship—a journey bound together by the unifying force of a world-leading publisher.

Storm and Conquest

Storm and Conquest PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393060478
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This is history, not fiction; but the story is pure Patrick O'Brian, with special effects out ofThe Perfect Storm. The Indian Ocean was the final battleground for Nelson's navy and France. At stake was Britain's commercial lifeline to India-and its strategic capacity to wage war in Europe. In one fatal season, the natural order of maritime power since Trafalgar was destroyed. In bringing home Bengali saltpeter for the Peninsular campaign with military and civilian passengers, Britain lost fourteen of her great Indiamen, either sunk or taken by enemy frigates. Many hundreds of lives were lost, and the East India Company was shaken to its foundations. The focus of these disasters, military and meteorological, was a tiny French outpost in mid-ocean-the island known as Mauritius. This is the story of that season. It brings together the terrifying ordeal of men, women, and children caught at sea in hurricanes, and those who survived to take up the battle to drive the French from the Eastern seas. Mauritius must be taken at any cost. 8 pages of color, 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations; 4 maps.

Defiance: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Anne Barnard

Defiance: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Anne Barnard PDF Author: Stephen Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393248186
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
The first major biography of eighteenth-century writer and socialite Lady Anne Barnard. Born in Scotland in 1750, Lady Anne Barnard lived at the heart of Georgian society. She wrote one of the most popular ballads of her day, captivated Sir Walter Scott with her poetry, rubbed shoulders with the Prince of Wales, and dazzled Samuel Johnson with her repartee. Lady Anne’s charisma and talent were undeniable; she was well known as both a beauty and a wit. However, she was also seen as an eccentric—an artist defined by her defiance of convention. Lady Anne had romantic affairs with several prominent men, but she married none of them. She preferred to live independently—even traveling alone to Paris during the upheaval of the French Revolution. When she did marry, it was to an impoverished army officer many years her junior. The pairing scandalized polite society. Hounded by gossip, the couple escaped to the Cape Colony—England’s first African possession—where Lady Anne painted the vibrant landscapes and penned her memoirs. An indefatigable diarist, she proved herself one of the extraordinary chroniclers of the era. Stephen Taylor draws on Lady Anne’s private papers, including six volumes of her never-before-published memoirs, to construct a vivid biography of her remarkable life. Illustrated with Lady Anne’s own drawings as well as portraits by her contemporaries, Defiance offers a lively and wholly absorbing portrayal of a woman far ahead of her time.

Writing the Ancestral River

Writing the Ancestral River PDF Author: Jacklyn Cock
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 177614189X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
Writing the Ancestral River is an illuminating and unusual biography of the Kowie River in the Eastern Cape This tidal river runs through the centre of what used to be called the Zuurveld, a formative meeting ground of different peoples who have shaped our history: Khoikhoi herders, Xhosa pastoralists, Dutch trekboers and British settlers. Their direct descendants continue to live in the area and interact in ways that have been decisively shaped by their shared history. Besides being a social history, this is also a natural history of the river and its catchment area, where dinosaurs once roamed and cycads still grow. As the book shows, the natural world of the Kowie has felt the effects of human settlement, most strikingly through the establishment of a harbour at the mouth of the river in the 19th century and the development of a marina in the late 20th century. Both projects have had a decisive and deleterious impact on the Kowie. People are increasingly reconnecting with nature and justice through rivers. Acknowledging the past, and the inter-generational, racialised privileges, damages and denials it established and perpetuates, is necessary for any shared future. By focusing on this `little' river, the book raises larger questions about colonialism, capitalism, `development' and ecology, and asks us to consider the connections between social and environmental injustice.