The Survivors of the Chancellor

Told as the day-by-day diary of passenger J.R. Kazallon, this is one of Verne’s darkest stories. The Chancellor sails from Charleston bound for Liverpool with a cargo that is quietly burning below deck. What begins as an ordinary Atlantic crossing turns into fire, shipwreck, and a slow ordeal on a makeshift raft, where thirst, hunger, and finally the temptation of cannibalism strip the survivors down to raw instinct. Verne wrote it with a cold, documentary realism, drawing on real accounts of disaster at sea, and it stands well apart from his lighter adventures. First published in 1875, it remains a gripping study of how people behave when rescue never comes. This free PDF and EPUB edition includes the full English translation.