The Sea Captain's Wife

A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World

De: Tilar J. Mazzeo

Narrado por: Laurence Bouvard

The true story of the first female captain of a merchant ship and her treacherous navigation of Antarctica's deadly waters, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot

Summer, 1856

Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, were young and ambitious. Both from New England seafaring families, they had already completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach. It would mean freedom. And the price of that freedom was one last dangerous transit―into the most treacherous waters in the world.

As their ship, Neptune’s Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk, delirious. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination, was agitating for mutiny. With no obvious option for a new captain and heartbroken about her husband, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. Determined to save the ship, the crew, and their future, she faces down the deadly waters of Drake’s Passage.

Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush and taking us to the brink of Antarctica, The Sea Captain's Wife finally gives Mary Ann Patten―the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain―her due. Mazzeo draws on new archival research from nineteenth-century women’s maritime journals and on her own expedition to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in search of Mary Ann’s route. Thrilling, harrowing, and heroic, The Sea Captain's Wife is the story of one woman who, for love, would do what was necessary to survive.

©2025 by Tilar J. Mazzeo. (P)2025 Simon & Schuster UK, all rights reserved.

Beautiful Story Lost in the Sea of History

I adored this story. More important, I agree with the author completely that stories such as these—where the record is sparse, lacunae abound, and neither primary nor secondary sources speak loudly enough—deserve a chance.

She is surely correct that demanding perfect evidence will produce only stories of kings, presidents, and generals. Here, the author always informed the reader where the record was silent, and thus where she had to make an educated guess about how to fill in the story’s empty spaces. She tells a wonderful, honest tale about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. And she tells it brilliantly.

The narrator presented the story perfectly.

what a woman!

I enjoyed the story very much and it was a fascinating feat she accomplished. However, the author digresses way too much into minutia of History.

Wonderful!

Great adventure tale, full of excitement and suspense. Great true story of a courageous and capable young woman who saved her ship and her husband. A story American school children should know, but sadly do not.

Excellent

I am in the marine industry, so the cover and name of this book caught my eye. It was 100% worth the read and the ending - epilogue almost made me teary. I love history and this was a really good true story that I had never heard of. I was hooked the entire time. Loved it. And the narrator was excellent.

A Great and True Story

A slow start setting the scene, but worth it when the story starts unfolding. Hard to put down!