Island of the Lost
The Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World
Joan Druett
Hundreds of miles from
civilization, two ships wreck on opposite ends of the same deserted island in
this true story of human nature at its best—and at its worst.
It is 1864, and Captain Thomas Musgave’s schooner, Grafton, has just wrecked on Auckland
Island, a forbidding piece of land 285 miles south of New Zealand. Battered by
year-round freezing rain and constant winds, it is one of the most inhospitable
places on earth. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.
Incredibly, at the same time on the opposite end of the
island, another ship runs aground during a storm. Separated by only twenty
miles and the island’s treacherous, impassable cliffs, the crews of the Grafton and the Invercauld face the same fate. And yet where the Invercauld’s crew turns inward on
itself, fighting, starving, and even turning to cannibalism, Musgrave’s crew bands
together to build a cabin and a forge—and eventually, to find a way to escape.
Using the survivors’ journals and historical records,
award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett brings to life this extraordinary
untold story about leadership and the fine line between order and chaos.
“[A]
study of the extremes of human nature and the effects of good (and bad)
leadership . . . If the southern part of Auckland Island is all Robinson Crusoe, the northern part is
more Lord of the Flies . . . Druett is an able and thorough guide to the minutiae of
castaway life . . . [She] shows that real leadership is rare and powerful.”
—New York Times Book Review