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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a thrilling story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court-martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.
A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, TIME, Smithsonian, NPR, Vulture, Kirkus Reviews
“Riveting…Reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.”—Time
“A tour de force of narrative nonfiction.”—The Wall Street Journal
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
But then…six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes—they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court-martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the listener spellbound.
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D B. –
The Wager is a good story about an awful experience. Shipwrecked on a desolate island off one of the earth’s most godforsaken coasts, the crew of HM Wager, a man of war, eked out a tempestuous existence trying to survive and escape. Their numbers reduced to a fraction of the original crew, they devolved into factions on enemies with former mates. Eventually, four or five groups made their way back to England, publishing accounts of their suffering in distinct contrast to one another.
David Grann writes well and the book is a good read but even he seems overwhelmed by the multitude of warring primary narratives. The reader is allowed to founder and is hard pressed to choose a central truth. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whose narrative one chooses, for they are all completely grim.
Andrew Desmond –
“The Wager” is a wonderful piece of narrative history. It tells the story of the somewhat curiously named HMS Wager and its part in the even more obscure War of Jenkin’s Ear in the mid 18th century. It’s a well written and compelling story.
The author, David Grann, also wrote “Killers of the Flower Moon”. The big difference between the two books is “The Wager” is so much easier to read. The story flows much like a novel. I read the book quickly, eager to find out what would happen next.
In essence, a small armada of vessels left Portsmouth in 1740 bound for the west coast of the Americas seeking confrontation with Spanish galleons and their prospective booty. However, in the process of rounding Cape Horn, HMS Wager was wrecked on a small Chilean island known today as Wager Island. Grann’s book tells the story of how the crew managed to return to England. Some did and some failed. Those who succeeded had differing interpretations of events.
The entire story is extraordinary. It’s puzzling to me why this story is not better known. To greater or lesser degrees, everyone knows the story of the Bounty and its famous mutiny. No one seems to know of the Wager. David Grann has done some excellent work bringing this story to a wider audience.
Recommended.
Angela –
My read of the year so far. The Wager is an incredible work that is meticulously researched and historically accurate yet written as a great engaging narrative.
I’m not going to spoil the plot, but as a record not just of the incredible tale of ‘The Wager’ but also of the extraordinary hardships and endurance of naval men in the c17th this is a totally absorbing read.
Amazon Customer –
Como se adelanta en el título, estamos ante un interesante y entretenido estudio sobre las desventuras que sufrió una flota de cinco buques ingleses que partieron de Londres en el siglo XVIII con la intención de capturar un galeón español repleto de riquezas. El trabajo se centra fundamentalmente en uno de esos barcos, el que da título al libro, pero informa también de lo que les aconteció a los otros cuatro y, en especial, al que comandaba la expedición. Además de la peripecia, el ensayo -que se lee como una novela- ilustra sobre la condición humana al analizar las relaciones entre los principales personajes que intervinieron en esa aventura, que yo la calificaría de enloquecida y que -quizás por ello- resultó un desastre.
saga –
Lo compre para mi papá de navidad. Le encanto el libro, es muy buen regalo. Y viene todo bien en relación a las páginas y sin daños.
Ricardo Carvalho de Barros –
Ótimo livro, daqueles que você não consegue desgrudar.
Richard B. Schwartz –
Let me begin with the answer to a direct question: is this book better than KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON? Yes, and by a wide margin. This is a historical tale that draws on the powers of fictional narrative. First and foremost, the story must be true. Hence, the success of the story rises or falls on the quality of the historical incidents themselves, because the resulting story will directly affect the elements of the narrative that are essentially novelistic: characters, themes, setting and plot. The story of the Wager satisfies each of those elements. In other words, David Grann chose wisely. And such choices are always guesses, to some degree. Once the commitment is made to sift through mountains of documents and other evidentiary material, the die has been cast: the resulting story could be a crashing bore; key questions might never yield satisfactory answers; plot lines could end in blind alleys; themes could prove to be maudlin commonplaces, and so on. Not in this case. We have an array of fascinating characters, a great adventure story, a novelistic plot, a riveting setting and a sobering set of lessons learned.
Basically we are in the War of Jenkins’ Ear; a set of British ships under the great seaman George Anson is dispatched to intercept and capture a Spanish galleon loaded with treasure. The voyage involves the negotiation of the treacherous winds and waters around Cape Horn. One ship—The Wager—is crushed against the rocks and the men must attempt to survive hunger, disease, and, as we say, insuperable odds, to somehow return to England and stand trial for their actions in Patagonia.
I purchased the book as a backup for other books in my reviewing queue that were about to ship. After being disappointed by KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, but seeing the hype for THE WAGER, I decided to read it until more interesting books arrived. However, once I started to read it I simply could not stop. Only one small quibble: the book ends with what the author (SPOILER alert) considers a reflection on the evils of empire. In other words, a dash of seasoning from the Woke shaker. Ultimately, the story is relevant for our own times and our own preoccupation with colonizers/colonized/oppressors/oppressed, etc. It is worthwhile to point out that every thinking writer in the 18th century (especially the putatively most ‘conservative’ ones, Johnson and Burke) were opposed to the aspirations of empire, particularly as they involved self-interested motives. The book is being described as Master and Commander meets Lord of the Flies. Fair enough, but the brief, third act brings everything down to the seedy world of politics. The book does not end on some high, moral, virtue-signaling ground, but in the world that is simply all too familiar. Bishop Sheen said he gave up on politics after Pontius Pilate. Amen. That does not undercut the impact of the story. It simply reinforces the usefulness of James Ellroy’s category of ‘tragic realism’ and, in this case, the manner in which politics can dilute actions of heavily-compromised courage and determination and render them (publicly) mundane.
saga –
Nothing not to like! Fast-moving for an historical story, well written, and hard to put down. Didn’t give any print errors and the page weights are thick, work a great cover and art included.