Talks & Entertainment

David Grann—the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z and award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker—speaks about The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder on the occasion of the book’s paperback release. 

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men with an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. After being marooned for months, the men built the flimsy craft and traversed nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

Six months later, an even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile with three castaways who told a very different story: The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth, putting the very idea of empire on trial.  

All books will be signed by the author. A post-event signing will follow for those who would like their name added to their book.