The Bounty Trilogy is a book comprising three novels by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. It relates events prior to, during and subsequent to the Mutiny on the Bounty.
‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ is novel based on the mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh, commanding officer of the HMS Bounty in 1789. It tells the story through a fictional first-person narrator by the name of Roger Byam, based on a crew member Peter Heywood. HMS Bounty was on a voyage to Tahiti for breadfruit plants and some of the crew members were complaining about Lieutenant William Bligh’s harsh treatment. The mutiny broke out under the leadership of Fletcher Christian, master’s mate on the ship. Mutineers set Bligh afloat in a small boat with members of the crew loyal to him. Byam, although not one of the mutineers, remained with the Bounty after the mutiny. Mutineers continued to sail on the Bounty, looking for a place build a colony, conflicting with natives.
‘Men Against the Sea’ follows the journey of Lieutenant William Bligh and the eighteen men set adrift in an open boat by the mutineers of the Bounty. The story is told from the perspective of Thomas Ledward, the Bounty’s acting surgeon, who went into the ship’s launch with Bligh. It begins after the main events described in the novel and then moves into a flashback, finishing at the starting point.
‘Pitcairn’s Island’ – After two unsuccessful attempts to settle on the island of Tubuai, the Bounty mutineers returned to Tahiti where they parted company. Fletcher Christian and eight of his men, together with eighteen Polynesians, sailed from Tahiti in September 1789, and for a period of eighteen years nothing was heard of them. Then, in 1808, the American sailing vessel Topaz discovered a thriving community of mixed blood on Pitcairn Island under the rule of Alexander Smith.
About the author
James Norman Hall (1887-1951) was an American writer best known for The Bounty Trilogy, three historical novels he wrote with Charles Nordhoff. During World War I, Hall had the distinction of serving in the militaries of three Western allies: Great Britain as an infantryman, and then France and the United States as an aviator. After the war, Hall spent much of his life on the island of Tahiti, where he and Nordhoff wrote a number of successful adventure books, many adapted for film.
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