Richard Snow spent nearly four decades at American Heritage magazine, serving as editor in chief for seventeen years, and has been a consultant on historical motion pictures, among them Glory, and has written for documentaries, including the Burns brothers’ Civil War, and Ric Burns’s award-winning PBS film Coney Island, whose screenplay he wrote. He is the author of multiple books, including, most recently, Disney’s Land.
"Superb—provocative and unnerving. . . . a tour de force.
[Snow] has impressively smooth control of his depraved,
devastating material." —National Review
"[Snow] deftly recounts that mortal episode, which helped to set
the Navy on a modern course. . . . [he] offers a
compelling psychological portrait of the antagonists . . . Drawing
on contemporary accounts, Mr. Snow vividly evokes the myriad trials
faced by the so-called saplings.” —Wall Street Journal
“Sailing the Graveyard Sea has all the attributes of a sea
thriller: mutiny, piracy, intrigue, murder, opposing forces, and
newsworthy vilification. . . . What became of the
participants, how the events impacted their lives, and a summary of
later accounts on this period in naval history round out
this absorbing, well-researched story of an incident few
readers have ever heard of.” —Privates & Privateers
“Gripping . . . Snow delves into the investigation and courtroom
drama, drawing on court transcripts to vividly recreate scenes on
board the Somers. Readers will be intrigued.” —Publishers
Weekly
“A page-turning history of an infamous mutiny . . . consistently
compelling. . . . Much of the book’s appeal derives from Snow’s
tart commentary . . . readers of this iteration will find it an
absorbing one. A hell of a yarn.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Richard Snow has brought forth the literary equivalent of a
perfect storm in which nineteenth-century adventure, true crime,
and high drama on the high seas all come together in the hands of a
master storyteller operating at the height of his considerable
powers. Sailing the Graveyard Sea braids the poetic force
of Herman Melville with the narrative flair of Patrick O’Brian to
create a dark, tightly strung, and deeply unsettling chapter in the
saga of the United States Navy. A masterpiece of maritime history
lifted straight from the gun decks of an American brig-of-war in
the great age of sail."—Kevin Fedarko, New York
Times bestselling author of The Emerald
Mile and A Walk in the Park
"As engrossing as Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the
Sea. In Richard Snow’s masterful hands, the collision between a
brash, young, wannabe pirate and his rash, too-proud, unyielding
commanding officer is a sea story for the ages. What happened on
Somers during a routine U.S. Navy voyage in 1842 is as shocking and
unsettling today as it was in its day." —James Sullivan,
author of Unsinkable: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of
the USS Plunkett
“First Snow’s watershed New York Times book review
revived Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels for a new
generation; now he delivers a masterful account of one of the
most intriguing episodes of U.S. Naval history. The moral questions
raised by the Somers mutiny echo through the ages—but
never so profoundly, or with such intensity, as in Sailing the
Graveyard Sea.” —Dean King, nationally bestselling author
of Skeletons on the Zahara and A Sea of Words
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