The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts

A seafaring story with a twist -- the incredible voyage of a shipload of "disorderly girls" and the men who transported them, fell for them, and sold them.

This riveting work of rediscovered history tells for the first time the plight of the female convicts aboard the Lady Julian, which set sail from England in 1789 and arrived in Australia's Botany Bay a year later. The women, most of them petty criminals, were destined for New South Wales to provide its hordes of lonely men with sexual favors as well as progeny. But the story of their voyage is even more incredible, and here it is expertly told by a historian with roots in the boat-building business and a true love of the sea.

Siv n Rees delved into court documents and firsthand accounts to extract the stories of these women's experiences on board a ship that both held them prisoner and offered them refuge from their oppressive existence in London. At the heart of the story is the passionate relationship between Sarah Whitelam, a convict, and the ship's steward, John Nicol, whose personal journals provided much of the material for this book. Along the way, Rees brings the vibrant, bawdy world of London -- and the sights, smells, and sounds of an eighteenth-century ship -- vividly to life. In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, this is a winning combination of dramatic high seas adventure and untold history.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 03/06/2002
ISBN: 9780786867875
Pages: 236
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 9.46h x 6.62w x 0.86d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 12/10/2001 pg. 58
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2001 pg. 1744
Library Journal 02/15/2002 pg. 161
BookPage 03/01/2002 pg. 6
New York Times 03/17/2002 pg. 7
Women's Review of Books 05/01/2002 pg. 8