The Wreck of the William Brown : A True Tale of Overcrowded Lifeboats and Murder at Sea

"More than a horrifying tale... also a penetrating examination of causes."

-Denis Wood, author,The Power of Maps

Seventy-one years before the Titanic, a ship loaded with Irish immigrants struck an iceberg and plunged to the ocean floor. The ship's crew stepped into two lifeboats, leaving more than half the passengers behind. Fearing for their lives, one overburdened boat's crew threw 14 men and women overboard. And the story of The Wreck of the William Brown had only begun.

This chronicle of one of the 19th century's most infamous sea disasters and the uproar that followed presents a portrait of a forgotten time, re-creates a defining maritime trial, and tells of back room legal shenanigans. Newspaper readership was exploding in the 1840s, and journalists jumped on this sensational story. The resulting investigations and trial gave us the concept of "lifeboat ethics."