Captain’s Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History

Drama abounds on the high seas and in the courtroom in journalist Cohen’s rollicking dissection of “one of the most famous cases in Western law” (after Supreme Inequality). In July 1884, three British seaman and a cabin boy were sailing their employer’s yacht to Australia when a gigantic wave sank the ship. For the next 20 days, they survived in a lifeboat with sides thick as “a cigar box,” no potable water, and two tins of canned turnips. Mad with thirst, the cabin boy eventually caved and drank sea water—a potentially lethal decision. Finally, the captain, Thomas Dudley, proposed following the “custom of the sea”: drawing lots to decide who should be killed and eaten. But instead of lots, Dudley and another sailor ultimately decided to kill and eat the cabin boy, who seemed to be dying. Rescue came four days later, and the survivors were up front about what had transpired—society had long had a “placid acceptance” of cannibalism at sea under extreme circumstances, so the seamen were shocked to be sent to jail. Britain, Cohen explains, was modernizing; the “Victorian impulse for improvement” was being extended even to the lawless ocean. Cohen delves into the sensational trial, elegantly teasing out the significance of each lawyerly chess move. The result is a gripping look at a foundational moral shift of the modern era. (Nov.)