The "Bounty": The True Story of the Mutiny on the "Bounty" (Hardcover)

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

Review
'Extraordinary... Caroline Alexander has produced a thrilling book of the most perilous journey of them all... Outstanding.' Daily Telegraph

The mutiny on board HMS Bounty has become one of the most abiding of all the great sagas of the sea. Over the years, myths and legends took their place alongside the facts, creating a distorted version of history. William Bligh was often portrayed as a harsh and ruthless captain while the mutineer Fletcher Christian was romanticised into an avenging hero. Caroline Alexander takes a fresh look at this famous historical event, employing extensive research to bring new information to light. Using contemporaneous accounts, she allows the mutineers to tell their story in their own words. This is an adventure story full of colour and excitement, complete with exotic locations, death and disease, dissent and rebellion and survival against all odds. On 28 April 1789, just before sunrise, master's mate Fletcher Christian and three other armed men entered the cabin of their captain, William Bligh, tied him up and took control of the ship. Under the disturbed command of Christian, they put Bligh and other dissenters into a 23-foot craft and sent them out to sea, certain that they would perish. Against all the odds, Bligh commandeered the little ship across 4,162 miles of frequently perilous oceans to safety in the Dutch East Indies. The drama of their 45 days adrift, surviving on meagre portions of food and water and catching sea birds to eat, is vividly conveyed. Throughout the ordeal, Bligh held on tenaciously to his sanity and his navigational expertise to ensure the survival of his desperate crew. When he finally returned to England in 1790, the Admiralty mobilised an expedition to hunt down the mutineers and the story tracks the details of the fate that awaited Christian and his followers. This account of the story begins before the Bounty sailed and ends with the death of the last participant, looking at the backgrounds and personalities of the men and how these might have influenced events. The personal letters and accounts give the narrative an immediacy that recreates the atmosphere of the time. This is history at its best. (Kirkus UK)

Blending a smooth interpretation of events with primary-source material, Alexander profiles history's most famous mutiny in the same stylish manner she brought to Shackleton's Antarctic expedition (The Endurance, 1998, etc.). There's no dearth of original material to work from when piecing together what happened aboard the Bounty in 1789, when Fletcher Christian and a small band of men staged a mutiny against Captain William Bligh, and Alexander has harvested all the best of it: admiralty papers, personal letters, Bligh's logs, wills, memoirs, diaries, and even "correspondence of figures not obviously connected to events, obscure news items, and the biographies and family pedigrees of seemingly minor players." The author re-creates the crew's capture on Tahiti and the courts-martial of Bligh and the others, with their contradictory evidence and clashes of will. Considering the surfeit of interpretations, it's not surprising when Alexander concedes that "exactly why, or precisely when Christian had begun to succumb to the pressure of serving under his irascible commander is impossible to ascertain." She offers fascinating and credible explanations for the rise of the Fletcher Christian myth, and the devolution of Bligh to join the ranks of Quisling and Legree; in one scenario, Bligh's breadfruit mission was intended to supply cheap food for slaves in the West Indies, and Abolitionists created in Christian "a young gentleman who, 'agonized by unprovoked and incessant abuse and disgrace,' stood up for his natural rights and overthrew the oppressive tyrant." The discovery, years later, of the families of the mutineers on Pitcairn Island added further grist to the Romantic mill. A great sea story ("surpassed, perhaps, only by the Odyssey," the author remarks), handled with dexterity to capture characters and circumstances with faithfulness to the record and a steady feeling of anticipation for history in the making. (32 pp. illustrations, not seen) (Kirkus Reviews)

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• Books > History > Maritime History
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