A Floating Priory

The Wager by David Grann made a splash in 2023, rapidly rising to the top of nonfiction bestsellers list. It offers a daring tale of an 18th century British shipwreck, and what happened to its crewmen. It has been praised for its extensive descriptions of the world at sea and the strong narrative voices of its characters, presenting a world of the bygone days of the British Navy at its least romantic. It also gives the reader a glimpse at another long-gone artifact: a world where the Church is an arm of the State (and the State an arm of the Church) and where Providence is always the true determinant of a man’s fate.