The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown

History so often turns on chance events, and the survival of the Jamestown colony is a dramatic example. This audiobook tells the surprisingly little-known story of how the Virginia Company's ship, SEA VENTURE, changed the course of American history after arriving at Jamestown in 1610. Michael Prichard maintains a steady voice as he relates the unspeakable suffering of the earlier settlers, who, when the SEA VENTURE finally arrived, were enduring the "starving time," which had reduced them to eating the bodies of their dead. Prichard's pace is just right, leaving the listener enough time to absorb the details in the narrative and keeping the story moving even when the text bogs down in detail. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

June 16, 2008
Few history tales pack the excitement of Virginia's founding. Most accounts start with the 1607 Jamestown landing. But like Kieran Doherty in 2007's Sea Venture
, historians Glover (Southern Sons
) and Smith (Inside the Great House
) focus on the desperate endeavors to rescue the colony from disaster after its first year. It's a rip-snortin' story of shipwreck, intrigue, horror, courage, risk, luck and will, and the authors milk it for all it's worth. Whether the wreck of the Sea Venture
on Bermuda and its recovery as part of the fleet sent to save Jamestown was more important to “the fate of America” than the original 1607 settlement is open to question. That aside, the authors let the story unfold in all its inherent complexity, tragedy and suspense. Glover and Smith focus on the tale's human elements and its often harrowing, sometimes inspirational events with appropriate verve. The authors have brought the drama in the Chesapeake alive in all its gripping detail.