'THE WRECKERS: A Story of Killing Seas, False Lights and Plundered Ships - Softcover

Bathurst, Bella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007170335 ISBN 13: 9780007170333

Publisher: HARPERPERENNIAL, 2006

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Lighthouse Stevensons a gripping history of the drama and danger of wrecking since the 18th-century and the often grisly ingenuity of British wreckers scavengers of the sea.A fine wreck has always represented sport pleasure treasure and in many cases the difference between living well and just getting by. The Cornish were supposedly so ferocious that notices of shipwrecks were given out during morning service by the minister whilst the congregation concocted elaborate theological justifications for drowning the survivors. Treeless islanders relied on the harvest of storms to furnish themselves with rafters boat hulls fence-posts and floors. In other places false lights were set up with grisly ingenuity along the coast to lure boats to destruction.With romance insight and dry wit Bella Bathurst traces the history of wrecking looting and salvaging in the British Isles since the 18th-century and leading up to the present day.

About this title

Review:

‘Bathhurst’s descriptions are precise and graphic, but also poignant ... Striking and memorable.’ Peter Ackroyd, The Times

‘[Bathurst] is wry, perceptive, laconic, occasionally downright funny and uncannily skilled at recreating atmosphere...a pleasure to read.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Entertaining and gossipy...Bathurst pens vivid accounts of hazardous stretches of our coastline and the depredations of the inhabitants.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A luminious tale of shifting sands and treacherous seas,’ Monica Ali, Guardian

‘She has a dazzling gift for descriptive writing.’ Adam Nicolson, Independent

‘Bathhurst has opened a magic casement onto a lost world on the edge of living memory.’ Independent on Sunday

From the Back Cover:

A fine shipwreck has always represented sport, pleasure, treasure, and in many cases, the difference between living well and just getting by. Though it is the Cornish who became most notorious for wrecking, coastal communities throughout Britain regarded as the 'sea's bounty' as an impromptu way of providing themselves with everything from grapefruits to grand pianos. Some plunderers were supposed to be so skilled that they could strip a ship from stem to stern before the Coastguard had left port, some were supposed to lure ships onto the rocks with false lights, some simply waited for winter gales to do their work. 'For a fully laden general cargo to run to ground in an accessible position is more or less like having Selfridges crash-land in your back garden,' writes Bella Bathurst, 'a Selfridges with the prices removed'.

From all around Britain, Bathurst has uncovered the secret history of ships and shipwreck victims, from shoreline orgies so Dionysian that few participants survived until morning to crofts fitted with silver candelabra, and from coastlines rigged like stage sets to the strange tale of Britain's Royal Fish. Spinning three hundred years of history, The Wreckers examines the myths, realities and the superstitions of shipwrecks, and uncovers the darker side of life on our island shores.

Bella Bathurst's first book was The Lighthouse Stevensons: The Extraordinary Story of the Building of the Scottish Lighthouses by the Ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and winner of a Somerset Maugham Award. Special, a novel, was longlisted for the Orange Prize. She lives in Scotland.

About this edition

• Publisher: HARPERPERENNIAL
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0007170335
• ISBN 13: 9780007170333
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 386