In the Heart of the Sea

their memories of the sperm whale that washed up on Nantucket.
    Special thanks to my Nantucket friend and neighbor Tom Congdon, whose enthusiasm and keen editorial judgment were an immense help, particularly in the early stages of the project. Gregory Whitehead provided essential input on the first draft. Marc Wortman helped me with several medical-related research questions and also read portions of the manuscript. Others who read and commented on the manuscript include my parents, Thomas and Marianne Philbrick, Susan Beegel, Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, Glenn Grasso, Thomas Heffernan, Stuart Frank, Michael Jehle, Chuck Gieg, Beth Tornovish, Tim Lepore, Cecil Barron Jensen, Betsy Lowenstein, Howie Sanders, Richard Green, Rick Jaffa, Richard Johnson, Peter Gow, and Richard Ellis. All errors, though, are mine and mine alone.
    At Viking, my editor Wendy Wolf always made this book a top priority. Throughout a hectic summer of revisions, she ceaselessly challenged me to live up to the material’s potential. A heart-felt thank you, Wendy. Kris Puopolo’s comments on the first third of the manuscript were invaluable while Hal Fessenden provided late-inning input that significantly strengthened the book. Thanks also to Beena Kamlani for her meticulous and thoughtful work on the manuscript.
    Special thanks to my agent Stuart Krichevsky, who has kept me on course through a most arduous and exciting year and a half.
    Finally, my love, admiration, and gratitude to my wife Melissa (to whom this book is dedicated) and to our teenage children, Jennie and Ethan, who cheerfully submitted to listening to the first draft of each chapter, even when they had homework to do.

INDEX

    Acushnet
    African American sailors
    cannibalization of
    on Essex
    Nantucketers and
    physical condition of
    after oarsman
    Albemarle Island
    ambergris
    American Revolution
    Ann Alexander
    Archimedes
    Argus
    Asnonkeets
    Atacames
    Atlantic
    Aurora

    Balaena
    barnacles, gooseneck
    Beagle
    Beaver
    Beechey, Frederick William
    Benneford, Captain
    Bennet, George
    Bligh, William, xiii
    blood sweats
    blubber, removal of
    blue whales
    boatsteerers
    in whale hunting
    Bond, William
    Boon Island
    Bounty
    Bowditch, Nathaniel
    bow oarsmen
    bread
    see also hardtack
    British Navy
    Brock, Eliza
    Brock, William
    Burke, Edmund

    cannibalism
    drawing lots for
    by Essex sailors
    island inhabitants’ reputation for
    nutritional value in
    Cape Horn
    Cape of Good Hope
    captains, responsibilities of
    Carlisle, Henry, xv
    Central Pacific
    Chappel, Thomas
    Charles Carroll
    Charles Island
    Chase, Adeline
    Chase, Charles Fredrick
    Chase, Eunice Chadwick
    Chase, Lydia
    Chase, Nancy Slade Joy
    Chase, Owen
    cannibalism of
    Henderson Island explored by
    homecoming of
    on Joy’s death
    on killer whale attack
    later career of
    leadership of
    marriages and children of
    navigation and
    Pollard influenced by
    psychological reaction of, to shipwreck
    religious beliefs of
    on sperm whale attack
    storms and
    strategies of
    whale hunting by
    written account of Essex disaster by, see Narrative of the Wreck of the Whaleship Essex
    see also Chase’s whaleboat
    Chase, Peggy
    Chase, Phebe Ann
    Chase, Susan Coffin Gwinn
    Chase, William Henry
    Chase’s whaleboat
    cannibalism on
    crew of
    damage to
    deaths on
    dehydration and starvation on
    morale on
    provisions of
    rescue of
    separated from other whaleboats
    shark attack on
    storms weathered by
    in whale hunting
    see also Essex whaleboats
    Chile
    Chili
    Christian, Fletcher
    chronometer
    Church of the Brethren
    Clarel (Melville)
    Cloud, Enoch
    Cochrane, Lord
    Coffin, Absalom
    Coffin, Frederick
    Coffin, Hezekiah, Jr.
    Coffin, Hezekiah, Sr.
    Coffin, Nancy Bunker
    Coffin, Owen
    death of
    Pollard’s relationship with
    Coffin, Seth
    Coffin, Tristram
    Coffin, William
    Coffin, William, Jr.
    Coffin, Zimri
    Cole, Isaac
    death and dismemberment of
    Colnett, James
    compass
    Comstock, Samuel
    Comstock, William
    Congregationalists
    Constellation
    coofs
    Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de
    Crozier, William

    Dana, Richard Henry
    Darwin, Charles
    Dauphin , xii-xiii
    dead reckoning
    Dean, John
    DeBlois, John
    dehydration
    descriptions of
    drinking after
    symptoms of
    Delano, Amasa
    Desolate Region
    De Witt, Henry
    Diana
    dolphins
    Donner Party
    Douglass, Frederick
    Drake, Edwin
    drift whales
    Dromo
    Ducie Island

    Eagle
    Easter Island
    Eclectic Fourth Reader, The (McGuffey)
    Elephant Island
    Elizabeth
    Emerson, Ralph Waldo
    “Encantadas, The” (Melville)
    Equator

    crew