Non-Fiction Books

This is the colourful tale of the whaling ships that plied the Pacific, Atlantic and Antarctic oceans in the nineteenth century, and the men and women who worked and lived on them. Women? Yes - an extraordinary number did accompany their husband-skippers on their long and perilous voyages, despite danger, privation and the undoubted brutality of the trade. The women travelled from a variety of motivations - to keep their men from the demon grog and the voluptuous, sexually-generous maidens of the Pacific, to spread the Christian word and morals of the day, or simply because they did not like being separated from their menfolk for the four or five years each voyage typically lasted. This book is about the experiences of these women on board the windjammer whalers and in the boisterous, brawling ports of nineteenth century New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia, Chile and Peru, as well as on a host of exotic islands. It is a book that demanded to be written, and is the result of five years' research on two continents.

"The sister sailors of Long Island: prelimary list, 1826-1915"--p. 40-41.

A "hen frigate," traditionally, was any ship with the captain's wife on board. Hen frigates were miniature worlds -- wildly colorful, romantic, and dangerous. Here are the dramatic, true stories of what the remarkable women on board these vessels encountered on their often amazing voyages: romantic moonlit nights on deck, debilitating seasickness, terrifying skirmishes with pirates, disease-bearing rats, and cockroaches as big as a man's slipper. And all of that while living with the constant fear of gales, hurricanes, typhoons, collisions, and fire at sea. Interweaving first-person accounts from letters and journals in and around the lyrical narrative of a sea journey, maritime historian Joan Druett brings life to these stories. We can almost feel for ourselves the fear, pain, anger, love, and heartbreak of these courageous women. Lavishly illustrated, this breathtaking book transports us to the golden age of sail.

Long before women had the right to vote, earn money, or have lives of their own, "she captains" -- bold women distinguished for courageous enterprise on the high seas -- thrilled and terrorized their shipmates, performed acts of valor, and pirated with the best of their male counterparts. From the warrior queens of the sixth century b.c. to the female shipowners influential in opening the Northwest Passage, She Captains brings together a real-life cast of characters whose audacity and bravado will capture the imagination. In her inimitable style, Joan Druett paints a vivid portrait of real women who were drawn to the ocean's beauty -- and danger -- and dared to captain ships of their own.

Using diaries, journals, and correspondences, Druett recounts the daily grind surgeons on nineteenth-century whaling ships faced: the rudimentary tools they used, the treatments they had at their disposal, the sorts of people they encountered in their travels, and the dangers they faced under the harsh conditions of life at sea.

After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history's most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett's riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack to recapture the Sharon, killing two of the attackers and subduing the other. An American investigation into the murder was never conducted--even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. Joan Druett, a historian who's been called a female Patrick O'Brian by the Wall Street Journal, dramatically re-creates the mystery of the ill-fated whaleship and reveals a voyage filled with savagery under the command of one of the most ruthless captains to sail the high seas.

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death. In 1864 Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies and relentless rain, Captain Musgrave—rather than succumb to this dismal fate—inspires his men to take action. With barely more than their bare hands, they build a cabin and, remarkably, a forge, where they manufacture their tools. Under Musgrave's leadership, they band together and remain civilized through even the darkest and most terrifying days. Incredibly, at the same time on the opposite end of the island—twenty miles of impassable cliffs and chasms away—the Invercauld wrecks during a horrible storm. Nineteen men stagger ashore. Unlike Captain Musgrave, the captain of the Invercauld falls apart given the same dismal circumstances. His men fight and split up; some die of starvation, others turn to cannibalism. Only three survive. Musgrave and all of his men not only endure for nearly two years, they also plan their own astonishing escape, setting off on one of the most courageous sea voyages in history. Using the survivors' journals and historical records, award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett brings this extraordinary untold story to life, a story about leadership and the fine line between order and chaos.

This book offers a biography of the unacknowledged Tahitian navigator who was essential to the success and eventual fame of Captain Cook's historic voyage on the Endeavour . Tupaia was the brilliant Polynesian navigator and translator who sailed with Captain James Cook from Tahiti, piloted the Endeavour across the South Pacific, and interceded on behalf of the European voyagers with the warrior Maori of New Zealand. As a man of high social ranking, Tupaia was also invaluable as an intermediary, interpreting local rituals and ceremonies. Joseph Banks, the botanist with Cook's expedition, is famous for describing the manners and customs of the Polynesian people in detail. Much of the credit for this information rightfully belongs to Tupaia―indeed, he could aptly be called the Pacific's first anthropologist. Despite all this, Tupaia's colorful tale has never been part of the popular Captain Cook legend. This unique book tells the first-contact story with Europeans as seen through the eyes of the Polynesians, and documents how Tupaia's contributions changed the history of the Pacific.

In the heady climate of the nineteenth century goldrushes, “going to see the elephant” was a saying that described an exciting, often dangerous, and usually profitless adventure—something to tell one's grandchildren about. In the spirit of the bestselling Island of the Lost, the story is told of the crew of the Connecticut schooner Sarah W. Hunt. When their boats are blown out to sea, off one of the most icy and hostile islands in the sub-Antarctic ocean, twelve men are abandoned by their skipper, left to live or die by their own wits and stamina. Six survive, to be carried to New Zealand—where the inquiry and court case that follow become an international controversy, with repercussions that reach as far as the desk of the president of the United States.

It was 1799, and French privateers lurked in the Atlantic and the Bay of Bengal. Yet Eleanor Reid, newly married and just twenty-one years old, made up her mind to sail with her husband, Captain Hugh Reid, to the Pacific, the Spice Islands and India. Danger threatened not just from the barely charted seas they would be sailing, but from the lowest deck of Captain Reid’s East Indiaman Friendship , too—from the cages of Irish rebels he was carrying to the penal colony of New South Wales. Yet, confident in her love and her husband’s seamanship, Eleanor insisted on going along. Joan Druett, writer of many books about the sea, including the bestseller Island of the Lost , and the groundbreaking story of women under sail, Hen Frigates , embellishes Eleanor’s journal with a commentary that illuminates the strange story of a remarkable young woman.

More riveting tales of shipwreck and survival from the author of Island of the Lost.

The incredible true story of William "Bully' Hayes, the so-called "Pirate of the Pacific" in the 19th century; the myth and the man. The story of Bully Hayes - so-called "Pirate of the Pacific" - is known throughout the Pacific, from the US to Australia and all points in between. He became the inspiration for a variety of fictional characters, writers from Robert Louis Stevenson to James A Michener and Frank Clune have used the Hayes legend, films were made based on his life (one starring Boris Karloff, another Douglas Fairbanks), and his name adorns bars and hotels all over the Pacific. But the truth is both less noble and more intriguing than the myth. In large part, the Hayes of legend was a product of the popular press at the time, who were determined to construct a romantic figure to feed their readers' appetites. This book simultaneously sorts the facts from the fantasy and recounts an amazing true story of a genuine rogue and adventurer, against the backdrop of the great age of sail and trade. This is the first proper biography of this legendary figure, and the only book that sets out to properly separate the myth from the truth. From the author: No one is even sure what this American from Cleveland, Ohio, looked like, and yet his impressive physical appearance is part of the "Bully Hayes" legend. Most of the people who met him agree that he was six feet tall, and hefty in physique, that he had a bluff and hearty manner and a soft, persuasive voice. Everyone agrees that he had a beard, but whether it was cut to a point (like Captain Morgan) or flowing down to his belt varies according to the narrator, and whether it was brown, black or gray is equally vague. What everyone does say, though, is that he loved women. Captain Bully Hayes had several wives on shore, and a harem of beautiful brown girls on board his dashing little ships. And they also say that he had a magnetic personality. Today they would call it charisma. Hayes was accused of every possible kind of crime - seduction, rape, bigamy, blackbirding, barratry, horse-stealing, cheating at cards, and the murder of his own family - but throughout his remarkable career none of this was proved. He was notorious for sailing away from ports without paying his debts, but that kind of easy dishonesty was so common in the days of sail that a term was made up for it - "paying with the foretopsail." It was a shabby sort of crime, and one he committed often, but not one to merit the "Bully Hayes" legend. Yet, though he never fired a broadside in his life, somehow William Henry Hayes became the pirate of the Pacific. Wherever he went, headlines sprang into the papers. As hundreds of editors knew, everyone wanted to read about "the notorious Captain Hayes."

Romance and the islands have gone hand-in-hand since the bare-breasted young women of Tahiti gave a rousing welcome to the 18th-century European adventurers who discovered the island. It was not just a tropical port of call that Captain Wallis and his men found, but their tales of golden girls and a majestic island queen became a foundation stone of the Romantic Movement, an enduring inspiration for writers, artists, filmmakers ... mutineers.Joan Druett follows up her prize-winning biography of the remarkable priestly navigator, Tupaia, by bringing this extraordinary story to life.