The Wreck of the Mentor cover art

The Wreck of the Mentor

A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail

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The Wreck of the Mentor

By: Eric Jay Dolin
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About this listen

An astonishing true story―one of the most gripping maritime sagas of the nineteenth century―told by our era’s “expert literary steersman” (Washington Post).

From the best–selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. With supplies dwindling, the eleven surviving crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs, and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, tribal wars, and dashed hopes, award–winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor’s doomed voyage, the years of perilous captivity, and the delicate negotiations and fraught naval rescue mission that followed.

Illustrated by more than 100 images and maps, The Wreck of the Mentor is at once a powerful story of survival and a revealing window into the great Age of Sail—a time when maritime ambition collided with local sovereignty, and when the outcome of one voyage rippled across oceans and empires.

©2026 Eric Jay Dolin (P)2026 Recorded Books
Americas Engineering Maritime History & Piracy United States World
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