author

Nicholas Mellen

Best known as one of the three survivors who told the story of the Nottingham Galley wreck, this early eighteenth-century mariner left behind a short but unforgettable firsthand account of disaster, endurance, and rescue.

1 Audiobook

A True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham-Galley of London,

A True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham-Galley of London,

by Christopher Langman, Nicholas Mellen, sailor on the Nottingham galley George White

About the author

Nicholas Mellen is known from A True Account of the Voyage of the Nottingham-Galley of London, a survival narrative attributed to Christopher Langman, Nicholas Mellen, and George White. Project Gutenberg and the Online Books Page both list this as the only work connected to his name, which suggests that he is remembered less as a career author than as a real participant in an extraordinary event.

In that account, Mellen is identified as the ship's boatswain. The book describes the wreck of the Nottingham Galley near Boon Island in December 1710 and the desperate twenty-four days that followed, making it one of those rare books that reads like lived experience because it was.

Very little biographical information about Mellen appears to be reliably preserved beyond his role in the wreck narrative. What survives is his part in a stark, collaborative testimony that has continued to interest readers for its vivid picture of maritime danger and human endurance.