Recounts the 1782 shipwreck of one of the East India Company's most prestigious ships, describing how ninety-one crew members and thirty-four wealthy passengers found themselves stranded on the unexplored coast of southeast Africa.

Recounts the 1782 shipwreck of one of the East India Company's most prestigious ships, describing how ninety-one crew members and thirty-four wealthy passengers found themselves stranded on the unexplored coast of southeast Africa.

The 'Grosvenor' was one of the finest East Indiamen of her day, a grand three-masted square-rigger of 741 tons bristling with 26 cannon. When she ran aground on the treacherous coast of south-east Africa, an astonishing number of her crew and passengers, including women and children, reached the shore safely. But the castaways were hundreds of miles from the nearest European outpost - and utterly ignorant of their surroundings and the people among whom they found themselves. Stephen Taylor pieces together this extraordinary saga with tremendous narrative flair. Drawing upon much new research, he sifts the myths that became attached to the 'Grosvenor' from a reality that is no less gripping. Taking the reader to the heart of what is now the Wild Coast of Pondoland, The Caliban Shore reveals the misunderstandings that led to tragedy, tells the story of those who escaped and unravels the mystery of those who stayed.

Excerpt from A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Tempest It is interesting to note the uniformity of the estimate of Caliban's character by the critics. While all acknowledge his power and his attractiveness, scornings, loathings, and revilings are nevertheless heaped on him; indeed, I can recall but one solitary voice really raised in his favour: 'in some respects, ' says coleridge, 'caliban 'is a noble being.' It has become one of the commonplaces in crit icisms on the Play to say that Caliban is the contrast to Ariel (some times varied by substituting Miranda for Ariel), and that as the tricksy sprite is the type of the air and of unfettered fancy, so is the abhorred slave typical of the earth and of all brutish appetites; the detested hag - seed is then dismissed blistered all o'er with expressions of abhorrence and with denunciations of his vileness, which any print of goodness will not take. Is there, then, nothing to be said in favour of Caliban? Is there really and truly no print of goodness in him? Kindly Nature never wholly deserts her offspring, nor does shake speare. We may be very sure that he, who knew so well that there is always some soul of goodness in things evil, would not have abandoned even Caliban without infusing into his nature some charm which might be observingly distilled out. Why is it that Caliban's speech is always rhythmical? There is no character in the play whose words fall at times into sweeter cadences if the Eolian melodies of the air are sweet, the deep bass of the earth is no less rhythmically resonant. We who see Caliban only in his prime and, a victim of heredity, full grown, are apt to forget the years of his childhood and of his innocency, when Prospero fondled him, stroked him, and made much of him, and Miranda taught him to speak, and with the sympathetic instinct of young girlhood interpreted his thoughts and endowed his purposes with words. When Caliban says that it was his mistress who showed him the man in the moon with his dog and his bush, what a picture is unfolded to us of summer nights on the Enchanted Island, where, how ever quiet lies the landscape in the broad moonlight, every hill and brook and standing lake and grove is peopled with elves, and on the shore, overlooking the yellow sands where fairies foot it featly, sits the young instructress deciphering for the misshapen slave at her feet the features of the full-orbed moon. With such a teacher, in such hours, would it be possible for Caliban, even were he twice the monster that he is, to resist, at the most impressible age, the subtle influence of the atmosphere of poetry which breathed in every nook and corner of the Enchanted Island? The wonder is not that he ever after speaks in rhythm; the wonder would be if he did not. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.