The Wreck of the Medusa

A "thrilling . . . captivating" account of the most famous shipwreck before the Titanic—a tragedy that inspired an unforgettable masterpiece of Western art (The Boston Globe).
In June 1816, the Medusa set sail. Commanded by an incompetent captain, the frigate ran aground off the desolate West African coast. During the chaotic evacuation a privileged few claimed the lifeboats, while 147 men and one woman were herded aboard a makeshift raft that was soon cut loose by the boats that had pledged to tow it to safety.
Those on the boats made it ashore and undertook a two-hundred-mile trek through the sweltering Sahara, but conditions were far worse on the drifting raft. Crazed, parched, and starving, the diminishing band fell into mayhem. When rescue arrived thirteen days later, only fifteen were alive.
Among the handful of survivors were two men whose bestselling account of the maritime disaster scandalized...