Medusa : The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece - Jonathan Miles

Medusa

The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece

By: Jonathan Miles

Paperback | 21 April 2014 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $42.99

$36.50

15%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $9.13 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 25 to 30 business days

In June 1816, the Medusa, flagship of a French expedition to repossess the colony of Senegal from the British, set sail but ran aground off the desolate West African coast. The evacuation of the frigate was chaotic and cowardly - 146 men and one woman were herded aboard a makeshift raft which was then abandoned in mid-ocean, cut loose by the convoy of lifeboats which had pledged to tow it to safety. The drifting raft carried those who survived to the very frontiers of human experience. Crazed, parched and starving, the diminishing band slaughtered mutineers, ate their dead companions and organized a tactical extermination of the weakest among them.

Among the handful of survivors from the raft were two men whose written account of the tragedy catalogued the trail of government incompetence, indifference, and cover-up. Their book became a best-seller which rocked Europe and inspired the promising artist, Theodore Gericault. Reeling from an illicit affair with his attractive young aunt, he threw himself into an exhaustive study of the Medusa tragedy.

Set in the politically fragile world of Restoration France, the murk of Georgian London and along the dangerous West African coast where the French were covertly regenerating the outlawed slave trade, Medusa witnesses error and outrage turned into a bestseller, and that bestseller transformed into one of the masterpieces of Western art.

More in British & Irish History

Colonialism : A Moral Reckoning - Nigel Biggar

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Unruly : A History of England's Kings and Queens - David Mitchell
Princes in the Tower : Solving History's Greatest Cold Case - Philippa Langley
One Life : The True Story of Sir Nicholas Winton - Barbara Winton
Unruly : A History of England's Kings and Queens - David Mitchell

RRP $36.99

$33.25

10%
OFF
The Journals of Captain Cook : Penguin Classics - James Cook
Churchill : Walking with Destiny - Andrew Roberts

RRP $35.00

$31.75

Templars : The Knights Who Made Britain - Steve Tibble

RRP $24.95

$23.75

Empireland : How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain - Sathnam Sanghera
An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West - Konstantin Kisin
Operation Biting - Max Hastings

BLACK FRIDAY

RRP $37.99

$18.95

50%
OFF
Rum : A Distilled History of Colonial Australia - Matt Murphy