Set adrift after a collision with another vessel, ferry passenger Humphrey van W
eyden is picked up by the seal-hunting schooner the Ghost. His relief at being r
escued slowly turns into concern once he meets her captain, the brutally terrify
ing Wolf Larsen. The crew of the Ghost live in terror of their fearsome commande
r, and van Weyden is not made any safer because Larsen is attracted to his new p
assenger's comparable intelligence. Van Weyden's time aboard the Ghost turns him
from a gentle, domesticated man into an altogether tougher soul as he is caught
between Larsen and his crew during the rescue of other castaways, an attempted
mutiny, a cataclysmic storm and the appearance of Wolf's equally terrible brothe
r, Death Larsen. Wolf Larsen is one of the greatest characters in early 20th cen
tury American fiction. Like Captain Ahab before him, he is a man who has spent t
oo long at sea. We might assume he has become inhuman, but the novel gradually b
ut subtly reveals that it was the nature of life at the mercy of the angry ocean
s that turned him into the sea wolf. This special edition includes an exclusive
Foreword by adventurer Bear Grylls, which takes a fascinating look at the charac
ter of Wolf Larsen from the perspective of someone who has also stared nature in
its unforgiving face.
