Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin - Available

The Ghost of the Mary Celeste

by Valerie Martin
Susie Berneis
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
In 1872, the American merchant vessel Mary Celeste was discovered adrift off the coast of Spain. Her cargo was intact, but the crew was gone. They were never found. While on a voyage to Africa, an unproven young writer named Arthur Conan Doyle hears of the Mary Celeste and decides to write an outlandish story about what took place. This story causes quite a sensation back in the United States, particularly between sought-after Philadelphia spiritualist medium Violet Petra and a journalist named Phoebe Grant, who is seeking to expose Petra as a fraud. These three elements - a ship found sailing without a crew, a famous writer on the verge of enormous success, and the rise of an unorthodox and heretical religious fervor - converge in unexpected ways.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 28, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781666592153
      • File size: 339124 KB
      • Duration: 11:46:30

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Susie Berneis impresses as narrator of Valerie Martin's excellent historical fiction. In 1872, the ship Mary Celeste was discovered adrift off the coast of Africa. The undamaged vessel's cargo was intact, but there was no sign of a single crew member. Young Arthur Conan Doyle hears of this mystery and writes a fictionalized account. Berneis gives credible voices to bits and pieces from letters, diaries, ship's logs, court records, and poetry as the story unfolds. Part sea story, part love story, part ghost story, filled with intriguing characters, from the Mary Celeste's captain, Benjamin Briggs, and his wife, to Violet Petra, a spiritualist medium, to Phoebe Grant, the tabloid journalist who hopes to expose Violet as a fraud. Berneis moves seamlessly between time periods and human emotions. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 30, 2013
      Martin (Property) uses one of the most baffling maritime mysteries of all time as the starting point for a complex exploration of several different characters, including Arthur Conan Doyle. The melancholic and moving prologue, set in 1859, foreshadows the disaster that befalls a ship named Early Dawn. In 1872, the brig Mary Celeste, en route from New York to Genoa, is found floating at sea, no one aboard, and no real clues as to what happened to its crew of seven, including the captain, Benjamin Briggs; his wife; and his daughter. A decade later, Doyle, who has not yet created Sherlock Holmes, writes a fictional account of the ship’s fate, in which a lunatic passenger is responsible for a massacre of the others onboard. “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement” elicits strong reactions from those who knew the Briggs family. Martin is less concerned with exploring theories about what actually happened than in the repercussions of the baffling disappearances, in a manner that will remind some of the Australian writer Joan Lindsay.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
Check out what's being checked out right now Content of this digital collection is funded by your local Minuteman library, supplemented by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.