Review by Bill Doughty––
Cannibalism is a grisly relic of the ancient past with a few notable modern exceptions. How could it possibly be relevant today?
Adam Cohen shows the relevance in his remarkable, insightful, and disgusting book, “The Captain’s Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial that Changed Legal History” (Author’s Equity, 2025).
The book, dedicated “To all the cabin boys, both literal and otherwise,” opens with an introduction of the main characters and a bloody scene:
“On September 6, 1884, a German sailing ship pulled into the harbor in Falmouth, England, and deposited three emaciated men who had been to hell and back. Captain Thomas Dudley, first mate Edwin Stephens, and able seaman Edward Brooks had survived a shipwreck in the South Atlantic and drifted for weeks on the open sea in a flimsy wooden life-boat. They were eventually rescued, and now that they were safely home, they had a shocking story to tell.
In the lifeboat, the three men-and Richard Parker, their seventeen-year-old cabin boy-had no food or water. They were wasting away, their stomachs empty, their mouths parched, and their tongues turning black. In time, Dudley made a grim decision: They would kill the cabin boy so they could survive on his flesh and blood.
Dudley stabbed Parker to death while Stephens looked on, ready to help. Brooks, the conscientious objector of the group, opposed the killing and refused to participate. Once the deed was done, all three men eagerly drank the cabin boy's blood and feasted on his flesh. This grim food supply kept the three survivors alive for a few crucial days, until the German ship, which happened to be sailing by, stopped and took them on board.”
The three survivors thought they would be welcomed back in England with open arms.
After all, “the Custom of the Sea” allowed for shipwrecked sailors to draw lots and sacrifice one so the others could survive. But Captain Dudley (at right) with First Mate Stephens’s approval, murdered the young cabin boy without his consent and without drawing lots. They faced trial for murder.
Dudley was a devout Anglican who had taken the boy under his tutelage. With his prayer books, he had vowed to help Richard Parker become a good man on their ill-fated sail to from England to Australia. In his admission for the murder, Dudley told authorities, “I took out my knife first offering a prayer to God to forgive us for what we were about to do.”
Cohen presents a brief and relatable history of the Age of Sail. For example, something that will resonate with today’s Sailors: a “strong tradition of deference to captains.”
“Captains had what the law called ‘absolute discretion’ in many areas. Their dominion was inherent in the title ‘master’ commonly used for captains, which was short for the full legal title ‘master under God.’ It was widely accepted that captains were free to do what they wanted to their crews, almost without limit.”
The survivors had prayed for heavenly intervention in the three weeks since being shipwrecked. Brooks, the conscientious objector of the group, who nevertheless also drank Parker’s blood and feasted on his body, said they “all promised to live a better life” if God helped them be rescued.
Cohen also gives a stomach-turning history of cannibalism, as practiced in the ancient world and in extenuating survival circumstances –– and as sometimes justified, threatened, or practiced by religions and superstitions. He cites the Aztecs, Maori, and Fijians, and even the first English settlement in what would become the United States at Jamestown, Virginia, during the “Starving Time” of the winter of 1609-1610.
He quotes God’s supposed warning to the Israelites: “Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you.” Deuteronomy 28:53
Cohen notes, “Cannibalism also plays a central role in the Christian liturgy, which includes, in the Eucharist, the ritual consumption of the body and blood of Christ.”
After Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes, survivors ate the corpses of their fellow passengers. “A priest told the survivors that the Catholic Church did not regard it as a sin to engage, ‘in extremis,’ in cannibalism of dead bodies,”
But, Cohen writes. “In a case of killing someone to eat, the ethical and legal considerations are more complex.”
It’s hard to believe that some cannibalism –– along with slavery –– was condoned and justified in the mid-1800s. The “Custom of the Sea” was widely accepted two centuries ago at a time when sailing was precarious and shipwrecks were not uncommon. Cohen includes stories of numerous life-and-death encounters at sea, including some involving American sailing ships, such as the whaler Essex, which inspired Melville's "Moby Dick."
But the Victorian Age was notable not only for its traditions, but also for its reformations. And the public was kept well-informed of reforms through newspapers, which also splashed stories like shipwrecks across front pages.
When Captain Dudley, first mate Stephens, and able Seaman Brooks faced court trials in England upon their return, England was undergoing progressive reforms of labor laws, sanitation and health practices, and greater equality –– away from castes and toward greater democracy.
Progressive reformers called for:
- No more child prostitution
- An end to children working as chimney sweeps
- Free trade –– lowering food prices for the poor and working classes
- Extending the right to vote, including calls for women’s suffrage
- Support to labor unions
- A turn away from violence
- Dignity of everyone in society
Reformers confronted growing inequality in society as new technologies pushed some workers, including sailors, out of jobs. “New technologies increase profits for the ownership class, but they do not always help workers.”
“To Victorian reformers, in particular, cannibalism at sea represented a part of the old order that they were trying to revamp,” Cohen says. Even when sailors supposedly drew lots to carry out "the Custom of the Sea" it was often the youngest, darkest, or poorest sailor who somehow was sacrificed.
In the forms of reformation, traditionalists who feared change strongly supported Dudley and Stephens and said their actions were justified by a concept called “utilitarianism” –– necessity.
“An old Latin maxim, with origins in Christian canon law, holds that necessities legion non habit, or “necessity knows no law.’” Cohen notes, “The necessity defense has deep roots in Western law and philosophy.” We see the concept used today to justify immigration enforcement, war with Iran, and voting restrictions.
If a leader employs utilitarian tactics and says, “Trust me … I know what’s best for you,” Cohen suggests responding, “No, we do not trust you.”
Utilitarianism is “the philosophical theory that hold that the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number.” But does it justify murder? Authoritarian dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Putin would argue “yes.”
To the Victorian courts the issue was not so much about cannibalism as a utilitarian necessity as it was about the “sin” of taking cabin boy Richard Parker’s life. Parker’s last words, looking up at his captain were “What, me, Sir?”
Progressive reformers in England saw the issue with “moral clarity.” The answer was to follow the law, not subvert the law. “To slay an innocent and unoffending person to save one’s own life is not a justification or excuse.”
It doesn’t matter that the offender thinks they have God’s permission or forgiveness.
Followers of Jesus believe he sacrificed himself for the salvation of others. Killing the cabin boy (and eat his flesh) in order to save themselves was an “inversion of the concept of self-sacrifice.” Claiming to have God on their side, some said, was "blasphemous."
Supporters and family members of cabin boy Richard Parker placed a memorial “mural tablet” at the graves of the boy’s foster parents. An inscription reads, in part, “Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. –– Job XIII 15.”
It reads as a poetic indictment of sorts against Captain Dudley.
Here are two “found haiku” discovered in this book, one from the first chapter and one from the final words in the book:
proximity to
mortality had always
been part of sailing
stare out into the
fog undisturbed, searching for
A mast and a sail
Readers of this book or those who study the case of “Queen v. Dudley and Stephens” can learn the surprising verdicts and aftermath, especially relating to Dudley and how he met his fate.
Cohen’s book is at times shocking with grim tales of cannibalism. Notably, he refers to philosophers, authors, and literary works such as Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat,” Edgar Allan Poe’s “Narration of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” Rudyard Kipling’s "The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands,” Daniel DeFoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi,” original Grimm tales, and Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.”
These writers, with the exception of Martel, who endorses Cohen's book, are long-dead. But they are also relevant today in confronting growing authoritarianism and the need for true “moral clarity.”
In Dickens’s story the ghost Marley tells wealth-and-power-consumed Scrooge, “Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were, all, my business.”
