★ 03/25/2024

Maritime travel by sail was exceptionally “unpredictable” and pushed individuals “under great duress” to act in ways both noble and deceitful, according to this twisty tale. Bestseller Dolin (Rebels at Sea) unspools a fraught encounter on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812 between the Nanina, a 13-man American sealing expedition, and the Isabella, a shipwrecked British convict transport bearing more than 50 crew and passengers, among them civil servants, prisoners released from an Australian penal colony, and the families of both. Stranded for more than a month, the Isabella was facing starvation and infighting when the Nanina stumbled upon the castaways in March 1813 and, despite the outbreak of war, offered them transportation in exchange for their cargo. The Isabella’s captain agreed, and the two groups camped together for three months while undertaking a complex salvage operation. The tables turned drastically, however, when the British brig Nancy showed up, summoned by a boat the Isabella had dispatched shortly after foundering. The Nancy captured the Nanina, leaving five Americans marooned. For the next 534 days, they survived through Robinson Crusoe–esque ingenuity. This stunning account of shifting fortunes is riven with tension on every page, as Dolin provides detailed descriptions of bickering and backstabbing, tricky nautical maneuvers, and desperate survival techniques. It’s an edge-of-your-seat adventure. (May)

"A captivating castaway tale. Left for Dead is highly recommended."

"Left for Dead is a truly extraordinary story told in gripping fashion and vivid detail, but, and this is what makes it all so amazing, none of it is fiction; it all, every bit of it, actually happened."

"An absorbing adventure that explores the dark shadows of instinct and self-preservation, and the hardships and stress that stretch the bonds of humanity. Fascinating reading."

"A master of the maritime narrative, Dolin (Rebels at Sea, 2022) surfaces a submerged shipwreck story. . . . creating a work that will captivate a readership built from his many fans and all readers enamored of true tales of the high seas."

"It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dolin’s saga has as many twists and turns as a route through the mazy South Atlantic archipelago. … Dolin does justice to the drama of it all ... without stinting on one of pleasures of reading 19th-century history: the wordsmithery of people high and low…The author of several previous books on such maritime topics as piracy and whaling, Dolin is an expert literary steersman."

"No one writes maritime history with as much passion and vibrancy as Eric Jay Dolin. Left For Dead transports us to the remote, wind-scoured Falkland Islands in the early nineteenth century and brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters: speculators, convicts, scallywags, sea captains, and captains of industry—driven by country, greed, and the will to survive at any cost. This is narrative history (and natural history) of the highest caliber. A riveting, rollicking read."

"Exciting and meticulously detailed book . . . . With twists and turns on nearly every page, Dolin details how the unlikely companions overcame great odds and adversity to survive the deadly winters in the Falkland Islands. Left for Dead is an incredible true story long overdue for exposure in the modern age, and Eric Jay Dolin does not disappoint."

"In Left for Dead, a handful of sailors abandoned on a remote island by their mates more than two centuries ago is only the beginning. Eric Jay Dolin delivers surprise after surprise. With a plot worthy of the best seafaring fiction, Dolin’s gripping narrative has the added fascination of being entirely true."

"Eric Jay Dolin’s depiction of early 1800s seafaring is filled with as much adventure, intrigue, action, and colorful characters as any classic Hollywood movie. Surviving a thousand-mile ocean journey in a small boat is just one of several scintillating ingredients. Left for Dead is a true account that reads like a grizzled sailor’s tall tale."

"Thanks to his exhaustive research and a flair for storytelling, Eric Jay Dolin has managed to turn out a long string of excellent books in this genre. “Left for Dead,” with its many charts and illustrations, and wonderful descriptions of the Falkland Islands themselves, puts us right there in this strangely near – and yet still somehow far away."

2024-02-10
The bestselling author of Rebels at Sea, A Furious Sky, and Leviathan returns with another adventure at sea.

In his latest maritime narrative, Dolin chronicles an early-19th-century calamity featuring the usual privation and acts of heroism but more than the usual bad behavior. In early 1812, the American brig Nanina sailed for the then-uninhabited Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, where its crew hoped to find an abundant supply of seals. Later that year, the Isabella left New South Wales for Britain carrying a mixture of pardoned convicts, soldiers, and their wives. The ship’s incompetent captain barely avoided early disaster but later hit a reef in the Falklands; the crew managed to escape to a deserted island. When supplies ran low, a few men sailed the 17-foot ship’s boat across 1,000 miles of stormy ocean to Brazil, where a British admiral dispatched a ship that reached the castaways, as well as the Nanina, which had just discovered them. With the War of 1812 in progress, the British captain announced that the Nanina was a prize of war. He sailed off with both ships, aware that he was abandoning five members of the Nanina crew who were off hunting seals. When they returned, they were mystified to find their base deserted. Though readers already know that they survived, Dolin maintains an interesting narrative of their 18 months alone on the barren subarctic Falklands. Despite the absence of firearms, food was rarely lacking on islands dense with seals, penguins, and feral hogs and the services of a large, aggressive dog. The sailors’ mastery of sewing, carving, and carpentry proved invaluable. Personality clashes instigated much of the drama, with episodes of cooperation and mutual suffering alternating with selfishness, betrayal, and abandonment. Eventually, ships arrived to take them home, after which “most disappeared from the historical record.”

An entertaining castaway tale.