Caliban`s Shore – The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors Paperback – Illustrated, 1 July 2005

Terrific. Signed by the author.

Bought when I was in one of those moods also bought wreck of the Grosvenor, interesting and informative very interesting if little known tale of survival, or lack of it in Victorian times.

Great read - an amazing story and all the more interesting by being about real events.

Good quality book

I order boo, book come , I happy!

"The Caliban Shore" accompanies the survivors of the East India Company’s schooner, "Grosvenor", after she was wrecked on the south-east African coast in August 1782.The story starts in India as passengers and crew make preparations to leave the country and return to England – some under a cloud, some having made their fortunes, and others in an unseemly hurry. We follow the trail of events that lead to the Grosvenor striking the rocks at on the shores of the Wild Coast, and the miraculous escape of 123 passengers and crew (out of 150), including women (one heavily pregnant) and children, the youngest only a toddler. After a few days taking stock, most of the men abandon the women and (all but one of the) children to their fate, and head for what they wrongly believe to be the nearest European settlement, nearly 400 miles south. Constantly splitting, re-grouping, and splitting again, they struggle against exposure, malnutrition, and disease, not to mention the intrusively curious (and sometimes aggressive) locals. Three months later, the first survivors reach safety, but even after two rescue missions, only eighteen survivors made it home. This might seem like proof of Darwin’s survival of the fittest, but over subsequent decades reports began trickling out of the north: a whole tribe – hundreds strong – descended from a castaway Englishwoman.Written with wonderful attention to detail, and obviously supported by thorough research, in "The Caliban Shore", Stephen Taylor has produced a gripping story, and one I found hard to put down.

Stephen Taylor's THE CALIBAN SHORE is the story of shipwreck and the fight for survival that followed. It is so harrowing, so disgusting in scene after scene of man's unbelievable inhumanity to man that each chapter becomes a chore to get through. Inhumanity. The inhumanity of the British in charge of their Indian subjects; the inhumanity of one class vis-à-vis another within the British caste; the inhumanity of the highborn who boarded the ship towards the ship's crew, and the reverse inhumanity after the shipwreck, when the crew spurned the weakened highborn; the inhumanity of the inhabitants of the lands the survivors struggled through; the inhumanity of the strong against the weak, those who could swim versus those who couldn't, the young versus the old, the old versus the children. Nothing in this tale--or little--pleads for the survival of the human race. One crewmember, William Habberley, miraculously made it back to London to tell the story of what had happened in a book 225 pages long, written in 1800, then lost, then published for the first time in 1953, only to be lost (stolen?) again. Another surviving crewman chose to live among the natives, even when he later found out that civilization was nearby. He founded a family which was destroyed by warring tribes, his wife carried off, his daughter slaughtered. His son, years later, told his story. Accounts have filtered through concerning women who might have survived, but what they may have gone through is too horrible to contemplate; many of their relatives believe, and it is certainly the case, that their descendants are alive today. A 5-star, incredibly difficult book, beautifully researched. My own books can be found on Amazon under Michael Hone.

I'm a fan of non-fiction adventure and survival stories. Sometimes I'll take a chance and buy a book w/o knowing much about it at all. Did this time and really glad that I did!

This book describes a ship wreck that occurred because of the absence of navigation devices and determination of longitude. This particular voyage ended with a ship wreck on the coast of Africa. The survivors, of course, had no way of knowing where they were and how to rescue themselves. A good share of the survivors were members of the crew who set off to search for supplies and rescue. This shipwreck occurred before the idea of women and children first. When searchers arrived, they found some had died, others had left and others became members of African communities in the area.

This story is incredulous! It starts slowly with a great deal of information about life in India for those sent by the British East India company, which appears superfluous to the main event, but is not. It sets the stage of the haves and have-nots, so the reader sees the stark contrast once the roles are reversed when their ship runs aground. I've purchased this book at least three times now as I keep reading it and then giving it away to somebody whom I know would love it, then wishing I could read it again and buying another copy. The research is astonishingly thorough and the prose a treat.My only complaint is directed at the publisher: the font is so small that at age 58 and in reading glasses I can only read the book in the brightest of light.

Unlike a few of the other reviewers/readers, I thought Mr. Taylor was a brilliant storyteller. How else to explain why I couldn't put this book down and had trouble falling asleep at night thinking about it? It is the rare storyteller that can keep you enthralled when the outcome is a foregone conclusion.I believe that it is precisely the addition of historically relevant exposition, intermingled with tidbits of human drama, that make this story so much more than the otherwise grim tale of "they sailed, they shipwrecked, they died." I learned a great deal of history and perspective about the time period. I found the story fascinating. It did take me awhile to become gripped by the tale (having to be introduced to all the major characters got a bit confusing early on), but even in this, Mr. Taylor uses his prose to gently remind us of who they are as the story progresses. By the end, I was saddened that we couldn't know more about most of them. I felt I had shared a part of their life and loss, and I was moved by the stories of people that became a small and tragic bit of history.

The story gets of to a slow start and hardly gets off the ground. The only reason I gave it three stars was because the author put a lot of effort into writing a factual book. A very sad and tragic story.