Pursuing the Leviathan: The Heroic Life of New England Whaling Captain Benjamin Clough

Set in the golden age of whaling in the nineteenth century, this book brings to life the adventures of Benjamin Clough, best known for single-handedly rescuing the ship Sharon from mutineers in 1842. Clough's heroism earned him a whaling command, which led to a whaling career that for a quarter-century took him into the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans.

The extraordinary event that merited Clough his promotion to a captaincy occurred when he was just twenty-three years old. At sea since...