by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

Charles Nordhoff and James Hall were two pilots who shared a common love of writing and adventure. Disenchanted with the post-World War I civilization, they decided to visit a place where money was not the only important medium of exchange. They subsequently journeyed to the South Seas. Shortly thereafter the two men wrote a historical novel based on an actual eighteenth-century mutiny that erupted on board a ship sailing near the island of Tahiti.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

The mutiny. On April 28, 1789, His Majesty's Ship (HMS) Bounty was seized from its captain and taken by mutineers. The decision to wrest control of the ship from its captain was a serious one. According to the strict naval code that ruled British ships at this time, those participating in the mutiny...