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The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

Caroline Alexander

3.96 · Rating details · 4,497 ratings · 301 reviews

The bestselling author of The Endurance reveals the startling truth behind the legend of the Mutiny on the Bounty -- the most famous sea story of all time. More than two centuries have passed since Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lt. Bligh on a small armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and ...more

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Paperback, 552 pages

Published 2004 by HarperPerennial (first published September 15th 2003)

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Nov 09, 2017 Paul Bryant rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-will-teach-us-nothing

It all started with breadfruit.

A guy called Joseph Banks spotted it when he was with Captain Cook on Tahiti. Joseph Banks later became a major ideas man and fixer for the British Empire ™ which was at that point in Phase One (steal anything that’s not nailed down in which case steal the nails and then steal it). There was a problem in the West Indian colonies – the poor slaves needed better food. As Wikipedia elegantly expresses it

The late-18th-century quest for cheap, high-energy food sources f ...more

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Jun 18, 2018 Terri rated it really liked it

Shelves: famous-trials-in-history, adventure-in-history, awards-nom-national-critics, world-mutinies-in-history

“The ship was named the Bounty: I was appointed to command her on the 16th of August 1787.” --
William Bligh

Mathematics, cartography and navigation were some of the skills needed to set out in sea in a square rigged vessel. It could take a lifetime of training to acquire. On December 23, 1787, sailing out of Portsmouth Harbor in Hampshire England was a ship called the HMS Bounty. This is the exciting story of what happened on that ship and why.

In 1787, Sir Joseph Banks, botanist and presiden “The ship was named the Bounty: I was appointed to command her on the 16th of August 1787.” --
William Bligh

Mathematics, cartography and navigation were some of the skills needed to set out in sea in a square rigged vessel. It could take a lifetime of training to acquire. On December 23, 1787, sailing out of Portsmouth Harbor in Hampshire England was a ship called the HMS Bounty. This is the exciting story of what happened on that ship and why.

In 1787, Sir Joseph Banks, botanist and president of the Royal Society of Science asked King George to undertake an botanical expedition to Tahiti and Jamaica. He recommended William Bligh as Captain as he wanted to collect breadfruit trees for transportation. The Commander William Bligh was born in Plymouth England. He was a Royal Navy sailing master (chief navigator) by age 22 and served under Captain James Cook whom he worshiped. However during the four year journey that he took with Captain Cook, the other officers did not like his personality. He was controlling, critical, temperamental, ambitious to a fault and could not understand his impact on other people. He always saw himself as a victim of incompetence and malicious plotting against him. He never had friendships of any kind.

The Royal Navy considered this a small voyage and not very important. Making the trip even harder was one third of the ship was sealed off to make room for the breadfruit trees and the large crew of sailors and botanists, 46 men, were crammed in a small space. Another blow to the expedition was the Navy ordered Captain Bligh to sail around Cape Horn which was a treacherous shortcut to Tahiti during poor weather.

Fletcher Christian was assigned master mate on the ship as age 23 and was recommend by Captain Bligh's wife Elizabeth for the voyage. Captain Bligh accepted him without hesitation because he had sailed with him before. Fletcher Christian was considered a “true gentleman” from a wealthy family and was considered well spoken even dynamic. From the beginning there was a particular strained relationship between the two men observers on the ship had noticed. Christian did have a dark side to his personality which some might call a borderline personality with mood swings. Also he had a brother who had been involved with an unsuccessful mutiny in the past so there was a bit of a rebellion in his family.

Right from the beginning of the voyage, there was rough weather. Captain Bligh noticed there was two cheese wheels missing in the galley. He accused the sailors of thievery but the ship's cooper (man who make s wood containers to store food) reminded Captain Bligh that he had ordered the cheese to be delivered to his own home back in England. Bligh flew into a rage and threatened to flog the man. Things under Captain Bligh went from bad to worse and with Fletcher Christian's leadership, some of the men mutinied after spending five months in Tahiti. They forced the Captain and 18 men into the ship's tender and sailed away. Somehow despite the open sea, Captain Bligh managed to get safely to a Dutch settlement in Indonesia. He lost one man. The mutineers burned the ship after sailing first to Tubuai then back to Tahiti. Eventually most of them were caught, court marshaled, had a trial (some were hanged) and sent back to England.

I highly recommend this book if you want to know the real history of what happened on that small merchant vessel HMS Bounty. I loved the story about the ship life as well as life in Tahiti. I was very happy to finally understand the real history, not the movie version, of this famous seafaring treachery. I found the book to be well-written and fascinating. Four stars. ...more

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Aug 10, 2010 Lorien rated it it was ok

I was really excited to continue my obsession with seafaring adventures and open boat journeys. This book, while well researched, gets so bogged down in the details of every person ever connected with any part of the story, that you never get a clear idea of what is going on. Perhaps if you were already familiar with the story of the Bounty (which I am not) and you really want to know extensive details like the biographies of the 12 Sea Captains who sat on the Court Martial of the mutineers, thi ...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Mikey B. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: exploration

What an epic true story! It has all the classic ingredients – conflict, romance, exploration of strange lands and survival in dire circumstances.

The true hero is Bligh. Ms Alexander brings out all the historical revisionism that has occurred since that era. We tend to look at these ships’ Captains (Bligh was actually a Lieutenant) as tyrants. Indeed they were – but in the context of the era it was “normal” to insult and lash your sailors – insubordination was simply not tolerated. The ship was n ...more

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Oct 07, 2014 Jill Hutchinson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: world-history

This is an amazing book. We are familiar with the story of the Bounty, captained by William Bligh, and the mutiny, headed by Fletcher Christian but the story has morphed over the years into more of a myth. The author attempts to set the record straight but since there are so many factions for and against Bligh and Christian, that it is a matter of sorting through the conflicting stories and deciding on whose side you fall. And with that said, I can say that it is really not possible to place bla ...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Terry Bonner rated it it was amazing

" I picked up this book simply for some light bedtime reading and promptly lost a full night's sleep because I couldn't put it down. Alexander's painstakingly reconstructed narrative of the iconic mutiny is absolutely spellbinding.

One has to admire the stamina of any historian who pours through thousands of pages of two-hundred year old letters, transcripts of courts martial, popular accounts in contemporaneous circulation and standard historical books on the subject. This is an achievement whic " I picked up this book simply for some light bedtime reading and promptly lost a full night's sleep because I couldn't put it down. Alexander's painstakingly reconstructed narrative of the iconic mutiny is absolutely spellbinding.

One has to admire the stamina of any historian who pours through thousands of pages of two-hundred year old letters, transcripts of courts martial, popular accounts in contemporaneous circulation and standard historical books on the subject. This is an achievement which is sure to oust Sven Walhrous's MUTINY AND ROMANCE IN THE HIGH SEAS as the definitive account of the Bounty misadventure.

What I find most remarkable is Ms. Alexander's convincing conclusion that the folk tales of Fletcher Christian's return to England have a firm and almost inescapable foundation in fact. This amounts to an historical bombshell, yet she presents it concisely, logically and authoritatively

Most of us are well acquainted with the popular accounts of the mutiny. One of the first real novels I ever read was Nordhoff and Hall's MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY. One of the first campy pieces of cinematic dialogue I ever committed to memory was Charles Laughton's "I'll live to see you - all of you - hanging from the highest yardarm in the British fleet" speech. The whole story seems at once familiar and simple, like a morality play. This book refutes almost everything we thought we knew about what happened on April 28th, 1789.

I won't spoil it all for you. The details in this book are plentiful and captivating. The characters are beautifully developed and richly portrayed. The author spends a great deal of time reconstructing the motives and actions of Peter Heywood (Roger Byam in the Nordhoff and Hall book; Franchot Tone in the 1935 movie). The family connections in the British gentry and their dynamics in the mutiny are examined in depth.

When THE BOUNTY was released in 1984, it was praised for its verisimilitude. Ms. Alexander's book makes that film seem like the Reader's Digest version of the event. The reality was far more dramatic and much less simple than any bromance-gone-wrong between Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson.

I don't know how to rate this delightful book except to say that I plan to read it again immediately. It is THAT excellent ...more

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Oct 31, 2016 Leftbanker rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

The Bounty

A completely thorough and exhaustive history of just about every aspect of this case in which the author has intended to reverse the negative opinions of the infamous Lieutenant Bligh. In what we can now refer to as Exhibit A in Bligh’s defense is his astonishing navigation in the Bounty’s launch which immediately became something of a legend in British maritime circles.

After Fletcher Christian had put him and the loyalists into the Bounty’s launch off the island of Tofua, Bligh, again The Bounty

A completely thorough and exhaustive history of just about every aspect of this case in which the author has intended to reverse the negative opinions of the infamous Lieutenant Bligh. In what we can now refer to as Exhibit A in Bligh’s defense is his astonishing navigation in the Bounty’s launch which immediately became something of a legend in British maritime circles.

After Fletcher Christian had put him and the loyalists into the Bounty’s launch off the island of Tofua, Bligh, against all imaginable odds, had navigated the little 23-foot-long craft 3,618 miles over a period of forty-eight days to Timor, in the Dutch East Indies. Here, his starving and distressed company had been humanely received by the incredulous Dutch authorities. Eventually, passages had been found home for him and his men, and Bligh had arrived in England in a blaze of triumph and white-hot anger on March 13, 1790.

And so begins our tale, more or less. We see this famous story in quite a new light that paints the now infamous Bligh as somewhat less a villain and possibly even the hero of this story. First of all, he was only 33 when the voyage began from Spithead so the three famous films of the mutiny are in grave error in depicting the hateful captain as an old man. It also didn’t seem to be his decision to go around Cape Horn but was something he was ordered to do. He abandoned that route after 30 futile days of battling wind and seas but without losing a single sailor.

That point soon came, and on April 17, Bligh determined to abandon the Horn. Only shortly before his departure from England, almost as an afterthought, he had received (through the intercession of Joseph Banks) discretionary orders from the Admiralty to make for the Cape of Good Hope if the Horn proved impossible. This Bligh now determined to do. From here, he would approach the South Seas from the opposite side of the globe. The detour would add some ten thousand miles to the voyage, but there was nothing to be done. After twenty-five days of battle with the sea, the Bounty was, at 59° 05’ south, more or less where she had begun.

There is ample evidence that Bligh was less beastly when it came to the men on his ship as his floggings were probably well below average on British vessels. So why did his mate, Fletcher Christian lead a mutiny? The answer is that there probably should have been a hell of a lot more mutinies in this age of sail. What prompted this particular bit of piracy was not so much the doings of an evil master—almost all captains were hatefully tyrannical—but possibly the belief amongst the mutineers that they may just be able to pull it off. On the other side of the world from England, in little-known waters, after just having spent 5 months on a tropical paradise those in favor of a mutiny probably felt that they had better chance of a decent life outside of the law than inside.

This was my second reading of the book. This time around I felt it was a little long, with a bit too much detail, but the first time I read it I had no such complaints. I think that it is just as long as it needs to be. I especially enjoyed the stories about the fate of the mutineers on Pitcairn Island. This ranks as one of the best tales in all of recorded history and this book does it justice. ...more

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Jul 20, 2014 J.S. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-exploration

Duty and a pile of coconuts

I was surprised while reading this book that no one I spoke with had ever heard of "the mutiny on the Bounty." In 1789, Lieutenant William Bligh sailed his ship, the Bounty, to the beautiful island of Tahiti. He'd been there before with Captain James Cook, but now his goal wasn't exploration but commerce: he was to obtain breadfruit plants to start plantations in the West Indies. Bligh was a conscientious captain who looked out for the health and welfare of his men, ev Duty and a pile of coconuts

I was surprised while reading this book that no one I spoke with had ever heard of "the mutiny on the Bounty." In 1789, Lieutenant William Bligh sailed his ship, the Bounty, to the beautiful island of Tahiti. He'd been there before with Captain James Cook, but now his goal wasn't exploration but commerce: he was to obtain breadfruit plants to start plantations in the West Indies. Bligh was a conscientious captain who looked out for the health and welfare of his men, even while insisting upon order. Unfortunately, a combination of combustible personalities, the beauty of Tahiti and its women, and a pile of stolen coconuts led to a mutiny that left Bligh and 18 other sailors abandoned on the rough seas in a very small boat. It was so heavily loaded that even small waves broke over the sides, and it seemed a certain death sentence.

But Bligh managed to sail his tiny boat and crew for 3,500 nautical miles (over 4,000 land miles) through violent storms and open ocean (with almost no food!) to a safe harbor. Even more incredible was that only one man died in a clash with unfriendly islanders. News of this amazing feat and the eventual court martial of most of the mutineers who were apprehended a few years later in Tahiti, was talked about for decades. Some were hanged for their crimes, but Fletcher Christian, the one who led the mutiny, was never seen again.

But the story doesn't end there. With savvy legal help, a couple of the mutineers managed to get pardons from His Royal Majesty, and several of the families involved worked hard to change the narrative of the incident. Bligh's temper and salty language – particularly over the stolen coconuts – was blamed for inciting the mutiny. But Caroline Alexander sorts through the facts and weaves a surprisingly interesting tale of the challenges of living on a small ship in a big ocean – and even tells what happened to Christian. And it's a very detailed story, with so much information that I found it slow reading in the beginning. Before long, however, I was caught up in it and couldn't put it down. She even tells where Christian and the others ended up, and what became of the community they established. The maps and illustrations were great to help follow the story, but I wished it had included a list of the 46 men on the ship and their positions at the beginning, since it was hard to tell them all apart. The extensive detail and backstory might put some readers off, but it turned out to be a great summer read. ...more

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Aug 31, 2009 Mom rated it liked it

urely this exhaustingly-researched, enthralling and enthusiastically-written tome is the last word on the most famous of all seafaring mutinies, that of shipmate Fletcher Christian and against Lieutenant Bligh on the Bounty. More than 200 years have gone by since the ship left England after dreadful weather kept it harbored for months, on its mission to transport breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. The mutiny in Tahiti left the mutineers scattered about the paradisiacal islands and found ...more

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Dec 02, 2017 Shannon rated it really liked it

Shelves: shipwrecked-or-frozen

A really interesting read. My main complaint was that one of the first chapters of the book details what happened to the mutineers after the mutiny, but I didn't know who any of them were yet since I hadn't read the part of the book that actually deals with the mutiny. And then, after the bulk of the book has happened, the author doesn't revisit where the mutineers went with the boat and what life they lived before being picked up to answer for their crimes. So randomly in the middle of the book ...more

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Feb 12, 2008 Nancy Oakes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, history

I expected this book to be excellent simply by virtue of having been written by Caroline Alexander, whose previous work, The Endurance, was outstanding. If you haven't read that one and you are interested in Shackleton, I strongly suggest you find a copy and read it.

The Bounty is another one of those marvelous histories, which although documented (sources for each chapter are given at the end & thus there are no footnote encumbrances), reads likes a novel. I literally could not put this book do I expected this book to be excellent simply by virtue of having been written by Caroline Alexander, whose previous work, The Endurance, was outstanding. If you haven't read that one and you are interested in Shackleton, I strongly suggest you find a copy and read it.

The Bounty is another one of those marvelous histories, which although documented (sources for each chapter are given at the end & thus there are no footnote encumbrances), reads likes a novel. I literally could not put this book down.

Synopsis:

Sunrise, April 28, 1789. William Bligh, who was actually a lieutenant captaining the ship Bounty, sent from England to the South Pacific to gather of all things breadfruit (you have to read the book to understand this)was rudely awakened at swordpoint from his bunk to be informed that he would be leaving the ship. In charge of this operation was Mr. Fletcher Christian, (and God help me, I can't help but think of Mel Gibson every time his name was brought up), who explained that he was in Hell and could no longer abide the captain's behavior. Wearing only a nightshirt, Bligh was bound and lowered into a launch. Others soon followed suit...the ship was then in the hands of Fletcher Christian and a few others of it seems, like minds. So...the question is what brought on the mutiny? Was Captain Bligh really as nefarious and evil as history has painted him? What conditions led to Fletcher Christian's decision? And then, in probably what is the true meat of this story, how were the majority of the mutineers rounded up & brought to justice? We all know that Fletcher Christian and a few of his associates landed on & settled Pitcairn Island, which lay largely undiscovered...so what was the real story here? So many questions, so many answers, from various viewpoints, keep this account lively & leave the reader wanting to read more.

The book opens with the collection & transport of the mutineers who had escaped to Tahiti; some of them voluntarily going to the ship & thus their certain fates and others who had to be rounded up. The story then moves to part two, in which we are introduced to each of the crew members including Captain Bligh & Fletcher Christian. The voyage of the Bounty commences, and this part of the book ends with the mutiny. Part three recalls Captain Bligh's feat of navigation and getting himself & the others consigned to go with him back to civilization, and investigating his court-martial for losing the Bounty. Part four...the political wheelings & dealings involved with the trial of the captured prisoners...and then finally, how the name of Captain Bligh came to be permanently associated with martinet-like behavior & came to be a dirty word. Here too you will find differing views on what happened once the main body of mutineers reached Pitcairn island.

One fun piece of information is worth noting. The night before the mutiny, Captain Bligh got into it with his officers about some missing coconuts. He called upon all of them to account for how many they'd eaten. Not that this is earthshaking in itself, but those of you who have read The Caine Mutiny (one of my favorite books of all time) will remember the dastardly Captain Queeg and the strawberry incident. I couldn't help but laugh and draw parallels & even wonder if Herman Wouk had incorporated this part of the Bounty mutiny into his own work.

I would very very highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this type of thing. Read it and savor it. Take it slow. Because Alexander (like any historian worth her salt) relies heavily on primary documents, the wording is often a bit difficult to read, but it is well worth the time you will take on it. ...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Carol rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir-biography, non-fiction, book-group-reads

My husband and I decided to listen to Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty after listening to Bligh’s daily log account of the infamous Mutiny on The H.M.S. Bounty. We were hoping to clear up some questions we had regarding Bligh and his character. If you’ve ever watched any of the movies that depict the mutiny, you can’t help but come away with a bad taste in your mouth for Bligh. He is portrayed as the villain and Fletcher Christian appears to be justified in his rebellion.

Alexander’s book goes in ...more

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Apr 05, 2009 Janellyn51 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Read in January, 2006
review: The Mutiny on the Bounty has always been one of my top 5 favorite books and I've read socialogical studies about Pitcairns Island and other odd bits and pieces. I suppose of the three films made, The Bounty, the last, is the closest to the actual relationship between Bligh and Christian. I don't know why no one has taken the story on to life on Pitcairn. For some reason it's Pitcairn that's always intrigued me the most. This book, is really interesting, I think. If ...more

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Aug 25, 2017 Leslie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, long-18thc, history

An excellent account of both the mutiny itself, ultimately inexplicable as it is, and of its complex aftermath. The consequences of those confusing hours aboard the Bounty in 1788 played out over many decades, and Alexander's account of the multiple competing attempts to reduce them to a satisfying narrative is particularly interesting. Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers, is impossible to know. He disappears under the layers of myth that subsequently gathered around him. Peter Heywo ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 Becky rated it it was ok

Oh, for an editor who was not afraid to delete extraneous material!!! The Endurance was so good; I really looked forward to reading The Bounty. Note to author (and editor): just because you found it in your research does not mean you have to include it in the book. I would not recommend this book - although I did slog all the way through it.

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Jun 29, 2017 William rated it really liked it

As I only knew the story of the mutiny from the movies, I was surprised at what I learned here. This book is a thorough accounting of the complete story. At first, I didn't understand the strategy she took in writing this, as Alexander begins with the moment Britain learned there had been a mutiny, and the steps taken to prosecute it. It's only later in the book that you learn the possible reasons, and the mysterious fate of the Bounty and Fletcher Christian. Getting to the courtmartial is somew ...more

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Jan 02, 2019 Disco Earl rated it liked it

This is a thorough work of history in which Caroline Alexander clears Capt Bligh's name after all these years/movies. The author of The Endurance (which I loved) tackles this other famous maritime story, except her focus is what happened during the mutiny and during the court martials later. I was more interested in the survival stories -- there were two: Bligh in the launch of the Bounty with 18 men, and Capt Edwards and the sailors from the Pandora after it sunk. These were covered briefly in ...more

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May 06, 2019 Madeleine rated it liked it

I learnt a great deal from this book, and the history is all very intriguing, but for a newcomer to most of the names and chronology, the book did get a little bogged down with details. I'm super glad Caroline Alexander knows what the weather was like in Portsmouth for every single day of the court-martial, but, y'know, I maybe didn't need to know.

So this is somehow more than you will ever need to know about the mutiny on the Bounty, and at the same time, I'm still not sure why there was a muti ...more

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Oct 27, 2008 Ralph rated it liked it

“All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself” ~Martin Luther

Warning: the following review contains historical facts that may be considered spoilers if you desire to read this book without previous knowledge of the events.

I love to read books about people and events that I know little to nothing about. I had certainly heard of Captain Bligh and the Mutiny on the Bounty, but that was the extent of my knowledge ...more

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Aug 23, 2017 Pamela Mikita rated it it was amazing

A throughly researched and well written telling of the Bounty and the men who sailed on her. A complete narration of all that happened. Would highly recommend.

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Aug 25, 2019 James Aylott rated it it was amazing

Well researched good read! Really makes me want to find a way to visit Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific.

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Nov 16, 2017 Michael Gerald rated it liked it · review of another edition

An enlightening story on history's most famous mutiny, the context behind it, and the consequences. ...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Andrew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: exploration-travel

The Bounty is a truly amazing work of scholarhip; Ms. Alexander seems to have read every scrap of information regarding the mutiny and the subsequent lives of all persons involved. She lays out the problems with the voyage, the petty dictates of a class conscious society, the trials of men at sea with nowhere to go to get away from those they dislike, and how the trivial becomes paramount due to this closeness. For all these reasons, the book should have five stars.

But...

After all the scholars ...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Jared Della Rocca rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, read-to-charlie

I don't enjoy sailing. My interest in history generally begins with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and proceeds forward. And yet, I have now read not one, but TWO books dealing with 18th-century British sailors (Captains Cook and Bligh). The book on Cook was a travel novel, taking the reader along the path of Captain Cook in both the historical and current sense. But The Bounty deals from a purely historical perspective, interweaving sailors' journals, letters, and even court martial transcripts to p ...more

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Dec 24, 2011 Caroline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: british-history

Like most people, I'd heard of the story of the mutiny on the i>Bounty, of Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian, and the colony on the Pitcairn Islands - but I never knew very much more. This was a wonderful read; I honestly could not put it down; and I felt I learned much more than just about the mutiny itself, about Tahiti, and navigation, and the history of the British Navy.

I'd always assumed that Bligh was a tyrant and Christian somewhat justified in rebelling against him, but the real story ...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, nonfiction, history

My husband and I listened to this book on our drive to and from Massachusetts. We both really enjoyed it, though I think it would be an easier book to read rather than to listen to.

For listening, the narrator was very good and fit the story. There were a couple times when it sounded like a completely different narrator started reading, but then the voice would evolve back to the one we were familiar with. That was very strange. Also, the first part of the book isn't chronological, which makes li ...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Ken rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, true-adventure

This is an informative and interesting presentation of Bligh’s mission on the Bounty and the events which followed. The book lends particular focus on how the Haywood and Christian families “spun” the tale after the fact to make the mutineers seem more “noble” and Bligh more “evil”. As far as I can tell, it’s a straight-up, honest and well-researched account of what really happened.

However, it does seem to me that the book spends proportionally too much time on the court martial and Peter Haywoo ...more

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Jul 16, 2017 Paul Haspel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bounty-mutiny, tahiti

The Bounty still sails, maintaining its place in the popular imagination. It wasn’t much of a ship, really – an ordinary three-masted merchant vessel – but it ranks with Jason of Thessaly’s Argo among those ships that have entered the realm of myth. It is the centerpiece of an epic story of love, adventure, conflict, survival, and of course mutiny. And the reader who wants a truly thorough recounting of the saga of the Bounty would do well to consult Caroline Alexander’s The Bounty (2003).

Alexan ...more

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Feb 04, 2008 Gavin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Probably the most famous mutiny of all time. I live in the South Pacific, not too far from Bligh Passage, which obviously is named after the much maligned captain of the Bounty. What Alexander does is depict Bligh as a more humanitarian figure than he is usually depicted, claiming that he was given a bad press. This is probably true.

What I've known for years is that the mutiny occurred because of the Tahitian women. The mutineers loved the sultry Polynesian maidens they spent five months with be ...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Brenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I am not someone who usually enjoys the type of history that lists fact after fact or overwhelms one with dates. I'm a character/narrative junky. This author managed to find the perfect balance between clearly presenting facts and moving the story forward, while at the same time giving a rich, nuanced analysis of the personalities and politics involved in the myth building that happened around the mutiny. And lovely little snippets of dry/wry commentary. I.E., when she noted that Fletcher Christ ...more

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Caroline Alexander

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Caroline Alexander has written for The New Yorker, Granta, Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian, Outside, and National Geographic. She is the curator of "Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Expedition," an exhibition that opened at the American Museum of Natural History in March 1999. She lives on a farm in New Hampshire. ...more