Owen Chase

author

Owen Chase

1797–1869

Best known for surviving the wreck of the whaleship Essex, he turned a brutal real-life disaster into one of the sea's most enduring firsthand narratives. His account later became one of the works linked to the inspiration for Moby-Dick.

1 Audiobook

Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex, of Nantucket; Which Was Attacked and Finally Destroyed by a Large Spermaceti-whale, in the Pacific Ocean; With an Account of the Unparalleled Sufferings of the Captain and Crew During a Space of Ninety-three Days at Sea, in Open Boats in the Years 1819 & 1820.

Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex, of Nantucket; Which Was Attacked and Finally Destroyed by a Large Spermaceti-whale, in the Pacific Ocean; With an Account of the Unparalleled Sufferings of the Captain and Crew During a Space of Ninety-three Days at Sea, in Open Boats in the Years 1819 & 1820.

by Owen Chase

About the author

Born in Nantucket in 1797, Owen Chase was an American whaler and the first mate of the Essex. In November 1820, the ship was struck and sunk in the Pacific by a sperm whale, and Chase became one of the survivors who endured a desperate open-boat journey after the wreck.

Soon after returning home, he wrote Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, published in 1821. The book gave readers a vivid firsthand account of survival, hardship, and life in the whaling trade, and it remains the work he is most remembered for.

Chase continued his maritime career after the disaster and lived the rest of his life in Nantucket, where he died in 1869. Today he is remembered both as a sailor who survived one of the most famous maritime catastrophes in American history and as the author who preserved it in his own words.