The English Dane by Sarah Bakewell

The English Dane by Sarah Bakewell

This gripping nineteenth-century adventure stars Jorgen Jorgenson, who ran away to sea at fourteen and began a brilliant career by sailing to establish the first colony in Tasmania. Twists of fortune then found him captaining a warship for Napoleon before joining a British trading voyage to Iceland, where he staged an outrageous coup and ruled the country for two months. Much lay ahead, from imprisonment in the hulks to patronage by Joseph Banks and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgenson was dogged by his own excesses, and ended up transported as a convict to the very colony he helped to found. Here he reinvented himself again as an explorer, and, despite his sympathy for the people, was caught up in the terrible Aboriginal clearances. Using unpublished sources and letters, Sarah Bakewell tells his astonishing tale with dazzling verve.

Bakewell is superbly matched to the taskHer account of the world encountered by Jorgenson is as rich and nuanced as her description of his life * Independent *
Precise, amusing and intriguing. A vivid and moving portrait of an extraordinary but flawed man... A terrific book * Daily Telegraph *
Sarah Bakewell has a fine story to tell, and she is its skilled servant...A wonderful, intelligently told story -- Thomas Keneally * Guardian *
Splendid... An extraordinary story brilliantly told * Australian *
An accomplished book * Sunday Times *

Sarah Bakewell had a wandering childhood, growing up on the "hippie trail" through Asia and in Australia. She studied philosophy at the University of Essex, and worked for many years as a curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Library, London, before becoming a full-time writer. Her books include How to Live: a life of Montaigne, which won the Duff Cooper Prize and the US National Book Critics Circle Prize, and At the Existentialist Café, a New York Times Ten Best Books of 2016. She was also among the winners of the 2018 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize. She still has a tendency to wander, but is mostly to be found either in London or in Italy with her wife and their family of dogs and chickens.
www.sarahbakewell.com

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780099438069
ISBN 10	0099438062
Title	The English Dane
Author	Sarah Bakewell
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2006-03-02
Number of pages	352
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.