A British crew mutinies against the cruel commander of the Bounty in 1787.

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the leadership of Fletcher Christian most of the crew mutinied soon after sailing from Tahiti, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen adrift in a small open boat. In one of history's great feats of seamanship, Bligh navigated this tiny vessel for 3618 nautical miles to Timor. Fletcher Christian and the mutineers sailed back to Tahiti, where most remained and were later tried for mutiny. But Christian, along with eight fellow mutineers and some Tahitian men and women, sailed off into the unknown, eventually discovering the isolated Pitcairn Island - at the time not even marked on British maps - and settling there. This astonishing story is historical adventure at its very best, encompassing the mutiny, Bligh's monumental achievement in navigating to safety, and Fletcher Christian and the mutineers' own epic journey from the sensual paradise of Tahiti to the outpost of Pitcairn Island. The mutineers' descendants live on Pitcairn to this day, amid swirling stories and rumours of past sexual transgressions and present-day repercussions. Mutiny on the Bounty is a sprawling, dramatic tale of intrigue, bravery and sheer boldness, told with the accuracy of historical detail and total command of story that are Peter FitzSimons' trademarks.

Parallels mutinies in today's business organizations with the shipboard rebellions of old. 15,000 first printing.

The names William Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and the Bounty have excited the popular imagination for more than two hundred years. The story of this famous mutiny has many beginnings and many endings but they all intersect on an April morning in 1789 near the island known today as Tonga. That morning, William Bligh and eighteen surly seamen were expelled from the Bounty and began what would be the greatest open-boat voyage in history, sailing some 4,000 miles to safety in Timor. The mutineers led by Fletcher Christian sailed off into a mystery that has never been entirely resolved. While the full story of what drove the men to revolt or what really transpired during the struggle may never be known, Penguin Classics has brought together-for the first time in one volume-all the relevant texts and documents related to a drama that has fascinated generations. Here is the full text of Bligh's Narrative of the Mutiny, the minutes of the court proceedings gathered by Edward Christian in an effort to clear his brother's name, and the highly polemic correspondence between Bligh and Christian-all amplified by Robert Madison's illuminating Introduction and rich selection of subsequent Bounty narratives. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

An account of the tragic voyage of the British ship to the island of Tahiti.

The Truth About the Mutiny on HMAV BOUNTY – and the Fate of Fletcher Christian brings this famed South Pacific saga into the 21st century. By combining unprecedented research into Fletcher Christian and his fate with deep knowledge of Bounty’s Polynesian women, Glynn Christian presents a fresh and comprehensive telling of a powerful maritime adventure that still captivates after 230 years. Of over 3000 books and major articles on the mutiny, or the five feature films starring such as Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson, none has told the true story as until 1982, no author knew the real Fletcher Christian, or could understand his relationship with William Bligh, his mentor-turned-nemesis. Glynn Christian’s extraordinary research into Bligh, Christian and Bounty included every deposit of documents worldwide and a sailing expedition to Pitcairn Island. This book details the cramped dark conditions on the ship and how Bligh bravely commanded it at Cape Horn, saving it and the crew. Yet he was unable to keep discipline because he didn’t punish enough, instead relying on his brutal tongue. Forced to remain in Tahiti for 23 weeks, Bligh struggled to retain order when Bounty sailed. Glynn Christian reveals how this affected Fletcher Christian mentally, explaining his out-of-character mutiny. Then Christian showed revolutionary social conscience, using democracy and uniforms on Bounty to maintain leadership, including through the little-known settlement of Fort George on Tubuai. After this, he and Bounty disappeared for 18 years. Bounty’s story becomes that of Pitcairn Island, of revolutionary black women who protected their children with the blood of their fathers and continued Fletcher’s ideals to become the first women in the world permanently to have the vote and guarantee education for girls. But where was Fletcher Christian?

A must-read for true-crime buffs and fans of maritime history, The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause and Consequences is widely recognized as the most detailed historical account of the mutiny on the Bounty that has spawned dozens of novels, movies, and other pop-culture retellings.