Captain's Dinner: The Book
Four men in a lifeboat. Two weeks without food. One impossible choice that would reshape the boundaries between survival and murder.
On May 19, 1884, the yacht Mignonette set sail from England on what should have been an uneventful voyage. When their vessel sank in the Atlantic, Captain Thomas Dudley and his crew found themselves adrift in a tiny lifeboat. As days turned to weeks, they faced an unthinkable choice: starve to death or resort to cannibalism.
Their decision to sacrifice the youngest—seventeen-year-old cabin boy Richard Parker—ignited a firestorm of controversy upon their rescue. Instead of being hailed as heroic survivors, Dudley and his crew found themselves at the center of a landmark murder trial that would transform law and ethics forever.
In Captain’s Dinner, acclaimed legal historian and New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen masterfully reconstructs both the harrowing weeks at sea and the sensational trial that followed.
Perfect for readers of David Grann’s The Wager and Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, this haunting true story has become the classic real-life illustration of one of philosophy’s greatest moral dilemmas, captivating audiences from ethics classrooms to Hollywood and inspiring countless explorations in film, television, and popular culture of humanity’s most challenging question: When does survival justify murder?
What Critics Are Saying
"A perfect enunciation of the classic philosophical conundrum: can you sacrifice one innocent life to save many?"
—Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi
"Is killing one innocent person justified if it saves the lives of three others? Cohen's answer—in this riveting account—reads like a thriller."
—Former U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken
"Brilliant and profound."
—Amy Chua, bestselling author
Captain’s Dinner is available November 18, 2025.
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