THE CUSTOM OF THE SEA. A Shocking True Tale of Shipwreck, Murder, and the Last Taboo

Hardback. Four shipwrecked sailors...one must die so the others might live. What should they do? A terrifying account of peril on the high seas - and of the electrifying murder trial that shocked the world. On May 19, 1884, the yacht 'Mignonette' set sail from Southampton, England, bound for Sydney, Australia. Halfway through the 12,000-mile voyage, Captain Tom Dudley and his three-member crew were beset by a monstrous storm off the coast of West Africa. After 4 terrifying days battling towering waves and hurricane-force gales, the 'Mignonette' was sunk by a massive 40ft. "freak" wave. Captain Dudley and his crew were cast adrift a thousand miles from the nearest land in a leaky 13ft. dinghy with only two small tins of turnips for food, no water, and no shelter from the scorching sun. After 19 days they were all near death, and Dudley determined that they must resort to the horrifying practice well-known among seamen of the time called "the custom of the sea." While the others watched, the captain killed the weakest of them, the 17yr. old cabin boy, Richard Parker, and his body was eaten. Five days later, the survivors were picked up by a passing ship, and although such cases of survival cannibalism were usually either hushed up or condoned as terrible but justified acts of desperation, in this case the men were arrested for murder. The sensational trial that followed kept a shocked public enthralled during the following winter, from the lowliest ship's deckhand to Queen Victoria herself. Illus. + Bibliog. 315pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true-crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in f. dw.