author
William Torrey
b. 1814
An American sailor turned memoirist, he is remembered for a dramatic first-person account of shipwreck, captivity in the Marquesas, and years at sea. His 1848 narrative offers the kind of rough, immediate adventure story that feels lived rather than invented.
1 Audiobook
Torrey's Narrative; or, The Life and Adventures of William Torrey
by William Torrey
About the author
William Torrey was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, on March 4, 1814. He wrote Torrey’s Narrative; or, The Life and Adventures of William Torrey, a memoir published in Boston in 1848 and presented as an account written by himself.
The book centers on the ordeal that made him notable: after a shipwreck, he said he spent 25 months in 1835, 1836, and 1837 held captive in the Marquesas Islands. It also follows his wider life at sea, making his work part captivity narrative, part maritime autobiography.
Little else was easy to confirm from the sources I found beyond what appears in the book records and editions themselves. What does come through clearly is the appeal of his writing: a 19th-century seafarer telling his own survival story in his own voice.