Stove by a Whale
Owen Chase and the Essex
Thomas Farel Heffernan
Wesleyan University Press
distributed by University Press of New England
1981 • 288 pp. 6 illus. 20 facs. Fig. 3 charts. Map. 6 x 9"
History - New England / Nautical

$19.95 Paper, 978-0-8195-6244-9




Chase's Narrative "is a good catch for its own sake." —New York Times Book Review

A thrilling documentation of the first sinking of a ship by a whale.

The first documented sinking of a ship by a whale and a harrowing account by the ship’s first mate of the survivors’ three months adrift in small boats. A thrilling narrative that inspired Herman Melville’s masterpiece Moby Dick.

"On November 20, 1820, a great whale rammed the Nantucket whaler Essex, 2,000 miles west of Ecuador. Owen Chase, her first mate, and 29 other men took to the boats; eight eventually survived. Herman Melville's debt to Chase's Narrative (1821) has been known since Moby Dick appeared, but little has been known about Chase and the survival of the crew . . . Heffernan's study belongs on the shelf of every Melville scholar and anyone interested in an exciting tale."
—Choice

A "wondrous tale [to catch] the top-gallant delight of insatiable devotees of whaling lore and all true Melvilleans."—South Atlantic Quarterly

"The astonishing list of books, logs, manuscripts, court records, ships' registers, and museum records attest to the diligent weeks, months, and even years that have finally resulted in a volume that entrances the reader with yarns of the sea. All the drama is still there, intact."
—Ocean

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THOMAS FAREL HEFFERNAN is a Professor of English at Adelphi University New York. He is chairman of the Melville Society’s Centennial Committee, charged with planning the observance of the 100th anniversary of Melville’s death.




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