The 'Bounty' and Beyond

Commander William Bligh’s official and private journals and his manuscript relating to the mutiny on HMS Bounty, made famous by Hollywood, are comprehensively examined and compared in this original study. Numerous surprising and important differences in these accounts are revealed, particularly those relating to food and drink and Bligh’s relationships with his officers and men. The comparison of these works is preceded by a thorough historical and bibliographical investigation of Bligh’s three first breadfruit expedition journals, that is, those of the Bounty, the Resource and the Vlydt. Also included is a full analysis of Bligh’s separate manuscript account of the mutiny and the voyage of survival in the open boat. This large manuscript is the forerunner of Bligh’s published Narrative of the Mutiny (1790). The significance of this manuscript, in Bligh’s own hand and held by the Mitchell Library, has not previously been fully recognised.