author
William S. Cary
1804–1883
A Nantucket sailor turned his extraordinary survival story into one of the strangest and most gripping seafaring memoirs of the 19th century. His best-known book recounts the wreck of the whaleship Oeno and the years he spent in Fiji before making his way home.
1 Audiobook
Wrecked on the Feejees
by William S. Cary
About the author
Born in 1804, this American mariner is remembered for a firsthand account of shipwreck and survival in the South Pacific. Genealogical records place his birth on April 25, 1804, and his death in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on February 28, 1883.
He is best known for Wrecked on the Feejees, a memoir drawn from his experiences after the whaleship Oeno was wrecked in 1825. Contemporary and library descriptions identify him as the sole survivor of the wreck and note that he lived for years in Fiji before eventually returning to New England.
What makes his writing stand out is its direct, lived-in quality: it reads less like an invented adventure and more like a survivor trying to set down what happened. For listeners interested in maritime history, castaway narratives, and early Pacific travel, his work offers a vivid glimpse into a dangerous world at sea.