The Wreck of the Mentor: A Story of Death, Despair and Deliverance in the Age of Sail, by Eric Jay Dolin. W.W. Norton, www.wwnorton.com. 272 pp., illus., $27.99.
Eric Jay Dolin’s newest book, The Wreck of the Mentor, A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail, is a richly illustrated adventure story telling the tale of a New Bedford whaleship cast away on the islands of Palau in the western Pacific in 1832, and the crew’s harrowing ordeal that followed. It covers the long and complex history of Western mariners’ encounters with the people of Palau dating back to the late-18th century; he summarizes those encounters and their aftermath in 23 chapters ranging from Palauan geographical and cultural history to the intricacies of American whaling, British commercial voyages in the region, and ultimately the role of the U.S. Navy in the rescue of some of MENTOR’s crew. Dolin outlines the biographies of most of the people involved, including Palauan individuals as were best recorded at the time.
From The Wreck Of The Mentor
MENTOR, in the storm that wrecked her.
The story is very well documented with primary sources, including the published narrative of two of the American survivors, an unpublished manuscript by MENTOR’s captain, Edward C. Barnard, a long account of the wreck of the East India Company ship ANTELOPE at Palau in 1783, and other related sources such as Capt. Amasa Delano’s Narrative of Voyages and Travels (Boston, 1817). Dolin consolidates it all into one inclusive narrative delving into the complex cross-cultural relations in the Pacific, particularly the trade in firearms, during an important time in world maritime history.