Investigating the Mary Celeste

On the 4th of December 1872, when Captain Morehouse of the sailing ship Dei Gratia called out ‘Ahoy!’ to a fellow vessel in the middle of the Atlantic, he could never have anticipated that he was about to discover one of the greatest maritime mysteries ever recorded. The ship he had happened upon was the Mary Celeste, and it was completely deserted, with no sign of piracy or mutiny. Unsure how to proceed, Morehouse sailed the abandoned ship into Gibraltar to claim salvage money. 

What followed was an intense criminal investigation, with murder, mutiny and a possible insurance scam all considered as possible reasons for the Mary Celeste’s abandonment. But after a three-month trial, no one was any closer to uncovering the truth. 

More than 150 years later, we still do not know what prompted Captain Briggs, his wife and baby, and the crew of the Mary Celeste to abandon ship mid-ocean. The speculation continues to this day.

With twenty-five crime and historical novels under his belt, historian D. Lawrence-Young is the perfect candidate to bring all of these theories together, delving into this mysterious case and shedding light on possible solutions, credible hoaxes, and tales of other ghost ships.