author

Joseph Darvall

d. 1859

A 19th-century writer remembered for a vivid account of survival at sea, he told the dramatic story of the wreck of the Runnymede and Briton on the Andaman Islands in 1844. His book turns a real maritime disaster into a brisk, firsthand-feeling narrative of endurance and rescue.

1 Audiobook

The wreck on the Andamans : $b being a narrative of the very remarkable preservation and ultimate deliverance, of the soldiers and seamen, who formed the ships' companies of the Runnymede and Briton troop-ships, both wrecked on the morning of the 12th of November, 1844, upon one of the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal

The wreck on the Andamans : $b being a narrative of the very remarkable preservation and ultimate deliverance, of the soldiers and seamen, who formed the ships' companies of the Runnymede and Briton troop-ships, both wrecked on the morning of the 12th of November, 1844, upon one of the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal

by Joseph Darvall

About the author

Little biographical information about Joseph Darvall is easy to confirm today, but surviving records show that he died in 1859 and that he is known as the author of The Wreck on the Andamans.

Published in the mid-1840s, that book recounts the wreck of the troop ships Runnymede and Briton and the remarkable survival of the soldiers and seamen aboard them. The work was presented as being drawn from authentic documents, which helps explain its direct, documentary tone.

For modern readers, Darvall is interesting less as a famous literary figure than as a keeper of a gripping true story. His surviving work offers a window into Victorian maritime adventure, imperial travel, and the kind of real-life catastrophe that quickly became popular reading.